Post-season Gameday Thread, #3: NLDS opens

After the appetizer which was the wild-card game in Washington, we get to the meat of the post-season, as the NLDS get under way today, in Los Angeles and Atlanta. First up are the Braves and the Cardinals. Atlanta took both series against St. Louis in the regular season, winning two out of three at home and on the road. Though all six took place back during the second half of May, so don’t provide much of a guide as to current form. In particular, they were before Dallas Keuchel signed in Atlanta. While he has an ugly ERA of 11.00 in his career against the Cardinals, that’s only two starts, and they came in 2012 and 2016. For St. Louis, Miles Mikolas took the loss on May 24, allowing three runs over seven inning.

After that, the game for which we likely have considerably more interest. Former AZ pitcher Patrick Corbin goes up against the Evil Empire in LA. His first playoff start - he didn’t pitch at all during our 2017 run - Pat has an excellent track record against the Dodgers. Over his last five starts, covering 30.1 innings, Corbin has allowed just TWO earned runs, for a 0.59 ERA. He pitched seven shutout innings for the Nationals on May 9, and got the win. Walker Buehler saw Washington twice, and the outcomes were very different: seven shutout and seven runs in 5.1. But might he be running out of gas? After a K:BB better than 7:1 for much of the year, over his final three starts, the ratio was just 14:9. We can but hope...