National League Divisional Playoffs for October 7, 2014
The American League divisional playoffs are done and the AL Championship series will get underway on Friday. In the meantime, the National League has to settle their divisional series. The Los Angeles Dodgers will try to avoid elimination against St. Louis tonight as will the Washington Nationals who are down 2-1 to San Francisco.
LOS ANGELES DODGERS AT ST. LOUIS CARDINALS:
We often talk about the implicit value that can be found by going against teams in ‘must win’ situations and we’ve got exactly that concept at work in this game. The Dodgers are facing elimination and are bringing Clayton Kershaw back on short rest. Kershaw is as good as any pitcher in baseball but lest we forget the Cardinals have historically hit him well–and they did just that in Game 1 dropping 8 earned runs on the likely Cy Young winner. The public has written that off as a ‘fluke’ but Kershaw has a substandard 4.11 career ERA and a 5-8 record against St. Louis. The Cards already hit him well and nothing good can happen bringing him back off of short rest. Yasiel Puig has been benched for the game which might be a plus the way he’s been hitting (3 for 12 with 8 K’s) but doesn’t suggest a team that is exuding confidence.
BET ST. LOUIS CARDINALS +145 OVER LOS ANGELES DODGERS
WASHINGTON NATIONALS AT SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS:
ESPN is all in a lather about last night’s Giant loss saying that the Madison Bumgarner throwing error was the “turning point” of the series. Apparently they have a crystal ball because that was just one game and there are two to play. It’s easy to read too much in to the profit/loss numbers on this game. Washington is ‘plus money’ on the road while the Giants are a unit or so under breakeven. That has more to do with valuation than anything else–the Giants were fairly valued by the linesmaker more often than not while the Nationals were undervalued at times (particularly after their midseason turnaround). Gio Gonzalez is a good enough pitcher who has been in decent form of late but his overall numbers this year are nothing special. Look for the Giants to finish off the Nats on their home field at an underdog price.
BET SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS +135 OVER WASHINGTON NATIONALS
