After a full slate of games Friday, there are only two postseason games on the schedule Saturday. The Rangers and Blue Jays are traveling from Toronto to Texas while the Astros and Royals are traveling from Kansas City to Houston. It's an off-day for the ALDSes.
The two NLDSes continue Saturday, each with Game 2. As you know, the LDS round is a best-of-five. The winners move on to the best-of-seven LCS round. Here is a quick preview of Saturday's postseason action.
NLDS Cubs vs. Cardinals, Game 2: 5:30pm ET on TBS
Cardinals lead 1-0
Pitching Matchup: Kyle Hendricks (8-7, 3.95 ERA) vs. Jaime Garcia (10-6, 2.43 ERA)
The Cardinals took Game 1 on Friday thanks largely to John Lackey, who briefly flirted with a no-hitter. The Cubs simply couldn't get anything going offensively, either against Lackey or the St. Louis bullpen.
The Cubbies opted to start Hendricks over a more experienced pitcher like Jason Hammel or Dan Haren, though with an off-day Sunday and a rested bullpen, manager Joe Maddon can go to the bullpen early if he wants. Hendricks faced the Cardinals just once this season, allowing four runs in five innings.
In order to even the series at one game apiece, the Cubbies are going to need their big righty bats to do some damage against Garcia. The southpaw was actually more effective against righties (.557 OPS) than lefties (.630 OPS) in 2015, though asking guys like Anthony Rizzo and Miguel Montero to do the heavy lifting offensively is unwise. Kris Bryant and Starlin Castro in particular need to step up.
NLDS Mets vs. Dodgers, Game 2: 9:00pm ET on TBS
Mets lead 1-0
Pitching Matchup: Noah Syndergaard (9-7, 3.24 ERA) vs. Zack Greinke (19-3, 1.66 ERA)
Game 1 of this series was probably the most exciting game of the postseason to date. Jacob deGrom dazzled, David Wright came through with a big hit, and the Mets walked away with the win. Clayton Kershaw took the loss but was still pretty excellent, striking out 11 in 6 2/3 innings.
Game 2 features another primo pitching matchup between the likely Cy Young award winner (Greinke) and arguably the best rookie pitcher in MLB (Syndergaard). Runs again figure to be at a premium and strikeouts will again be plentiful. The Dodgers are going to have to figure out a way to catch up to Syndergaard's upper-90s fastball because they couldn't touch deGrom's in Game 1.
Although it is not a literal must-win, the Dodgers can't afford to lose Game 2, especially at home. They don't want to go to New York for Game 3 down two games to none in the series with Matt Harvey looming. Dropping games started by Kershaw and Greinke would be devastating for Los Angeles and a major coup for the Amazin's.
