NL Wild Card Game: St. Louis Cardinals vs. Atlanta Braves
Kyle Lohse (Stl) 16-3, 2.86 ERA vs. Kris Medlen (Atl) 10-1, 1.57 ERA
Both teams enter this game with pretty potent offenses, especially St. Louis who has recovered nicely from the loss of Albert Pujols in the offseason. Now led by Matt Holiday, Yadier Molina, Mr. October David Freese and Allen Craig the Cardinals can certainly put up runs in bunches.
St. Louis has also pretty much been playing playoff type games the final month of the season as they continued to hold off the Brewers and Dodgers from the final wild card spot.
Like the Cardinals though the Braves can also put up runs in bunches and have been more consistent throughout most of the season. Atlanta may also get the the edge with longtime third baseman Chipper Jones calling it a career at the end of the season.
Both starting pitchers (Lohse and Medlen) have been very good for their respective teams this year but when you factor in Chipper Jones and the fact that Atlanta has one of the better bullpens in the National League the Braves should be making their way to the NLDS when this is all said and done.
Braves win 6-3
AL Wild Card Game: Baltimore Orioles vs. Texas Rangers
Yu Darvish (Tex) 16-9, 3.90 ERA vs. Joe Saunders (Bal) 9-13, 4.07 ERA
Two teams with two very different stories coming into this inaugural AL Wild Card matchup. The upstart Orioles were one of the bigger surprises this season hanging around, threatening in the east, eventually coming up short and having to settle for the Wild Card Game.
Meanwhile the Texas Rangers essentially held the AL West lead all season long before entering the final series of the regular season against Oakland. It was there that the Rangers totally fell apart and lost the lead on the final day of the season while questions surrounding the teams desire started to swirl.
Despite the troubles the Rangers had the final couple weeks of the season having lost 9 of their final 13 games, it’s hard to see them losing against a vastly inexperienced Baltimore squad. Yes Rangers fans should be worried about the way their team has been playing however with the talent level in Texas (Hamilton, Kinsler, Beltre, etc) you’d have to think that it the switch was going to get turned, it’s going to happen here.
Rangers win 8-4
