With 2,430 regular season games and a pair of wild-card contests out of the way, we finally get down to the nitty gritty. Who’s got the edge?  If you’ve read the Guardian’s baseball coverage over the past few seasons, the one thing you know is that these Cardinals, or indeed any Cards edition, are not to be judged on paper. One quick look at some basic statistical facts – that after 162 games, St Louis are seventh in staff ERA, that they’re tied for ninth in runs scored – tells you that the Redbirds just aren’t a very good baseball team. And yet, it seems that manager Mike Matheny has the NL right where he wants it.  The Cards flew to the finish, overtaking the tanking Milwaukee Brewers at the start of September, going 17-9 as summer turned to fall. The starting pitching came into its own down the stretch, leaping up to third best in the NL over the final 30 days of the baseball season. Adam Wainwright won five of his 20 wins in September, while Lance Lynn actually put up better overall numbers than the Cards ace. Shelby Miller, who enjoyed a standout rookie season in 2013 before being hidden in the playoffs, also had a September ERA south of 3.00. Newly acquired John Lackey was bad, but we all saw what he did in Game 5 against these Cards in the last World Series, so we know what he’s capable of. Remember Michael Wacha? The Dodgers sure do – he was the NLCS MVP a season ago, coming out of nowhere as a rookie to beat Clayton Kershaw not once but twice in ending the Dodgers season. He’s been hurt this season and struggled, but he could also become a weapon out of the pen.  The relief core also enjoyed a hot streak in September, and are formidable, led by the flame-throwing closer Trevor Rosenthal and his 42 saves that come along with a high-ish WHIP of 1.41.  Pitching is not the Achilles heel of these Cardinals – it’s the offense. The arms have been carrying the bats for most of the season, and that includes the final month where the usually bombastic Yadier Molina continued to play like a shadow of himself following thumb surgery. Power has been an issue all season long, and when Jhonny Peralta is your main power threat, well, opposing pitchers can take a few liberties.  Whatever. When the bell rings, the Cards will be awesome again, fully able to go toe-to-toe with the team they ceremoniously ousted last October, a ballclub that’s out for revenge.  That would be the Dodgers and their manager Don Mattingly, who are all under pressure to reach the World Series. And if you’re a fan of LA, you’re hanging your hat on two major factors heading into this series.  In the 2013 NLCS, Matt Kemp, a player who once finished as a runner-up for the NL MVP, was on crutches, after learning he couldn’t play due to an ankle fracture. Now he’s healthy, behaving like a choir boy and hitting once again, ready to help the offense try to overcome St Louis’ arms. Having The Bison, who is the current NL Player of the Month, in the lineup is a very big deal indeed – he had 25 home runs and helped boost the Dodgers offense from seventh in NL runs scored a year ago to second. When Kemp is on point, everyone benefits, from Yasiel Puig to Adrian Gonzalez to Hanley Ramirez and beyond.  Then there’s Clayton Kershaw. The soon-to-be NL Cy Young Award winner and possible MVP lost twice in the NLCS last season, so, considering that he lost just three times all season long, you’d have to think there is a better chance of President Obama going swimming an Iranian public pool than that happening again. Kershaw has struggled in October during his otherwise stellar career, posting a 4.23 ERA, but again, how can that can continue considering the form the southpaw is in right now? A would-be decisive Game 5 would likely feature both Wainwright and Kershaw on the hill.  If there’s an issue for LA it’s the health of Hyun-Jin Ryu, who now looks as though he can pitch in Game 3 despite a shoulder condition, and the overall state of the bullpen. Despite being led by the mostly steady closer Kenley Jansen, LA’s relief corps posted the 12th-worst ERA of the 15 NL teams despite improving down the stretch in September.  Prediction: I will never learn – Dodgers in five  Baltimore are a team that’s really tough to hate – I mean, who doesn’t like the cartoon Oriole on their hat? Find me that person …  There’s even more to love when it comes to Buck Showalter’s American League East champs – their airtight fielding, blue-collar starting rotation, their power and their bullpen. So wome baseball fans are talking about what the Orioles don’t have –that’s the narrative right now. How can the free-swingin’ O’s win in the playoffs without the struggling but always dangerous Chris Davis, their all-star catcher Matt Wieters and the golden-gloved Manny Machado? The answer is that this team always seems to find a way to get the job done, regardless of who isn’t on the diamond.  When the Orioles rotation, which is 25th overall in starts of six innings or more, can’t hold opponents, the bullpen comes to the rescue. When the hitting fails, their laser like fielding saves runs. When they need a pop, Nelson Cruz is there with a long ball, or perhaps it’s Steve Pearce (who?), the career journeyman who broke out at just the right time. And when a late lead needs protecting, young lefty Zach Britton comes on to shut down opponents as he did in 37 of his 41 save opportunities. Someone or something is seemingly always there to save Baltimore, and that’s the kind of thing that happens to winning ballclubs – the O’s are just that. Can they beat Detroit? Most definitely, and they should.  Having said that, these Tigers seem to be late bloomers. They’ve won four consecutive American League Central titles and yet there always seems to be something about this team that prevents them from reaching their full potential in regular season. However, when the playoffs come around they come together nicely, coming back from 0-2 deficits the previous two seasons vs Oakland in the ALDS, reaching a World Series in 2012. Even if there’s been no title, really, that’s not a bad postseason record at all, and this season Detroit are once again coming together late.  They were 16-10 in September in just beating out Kansas City for another crown, while their veteran closer, Joe Nathan, who was a problem child in the first half, continued to perform on a high level, posting a 2.95 ERA since 23 July and blowing just two saves. The offense continues to be the best part of this team, with Victor Martinez exploding, putting up better numbers than Miguel Cabrera, who still flirted with a .900 OPS in a “down season”. All Miggy wants is a World Series ring, clearly, after reportedly making such a declaration while refusing to sign the sheet to share in the playoff pool money (I’m happy to sign if they need a signature). Detroit’s lineup is relatively well rounded, leading the AL in batting average, on base percentage and slugging percentage and on base percentage. They did lose outfielder Rajai Davis to a late-season abdominal strain, which is a reasonably tough blow to suffer at this stage, but there seem to be enough Tiger bats around to compensate.  Pitching-wise, if you’re a Tigers fan, you’re hanging your hat on the last two outings of Justin Verlander, who seemed to reverse all that was wrong in his 2014 season, just like that. He gave up just two runs in a combined 15.1 innings, and if that sort of filthy Verlander returns (he pitches in Game 2), and David Price (who will pitch in Game 3) , Max Scherzer (who will pitch Game 1 on Thursday) and Rick Porcello (the Game 4 starter) pitch to their potential, Detroit should be able to hide the ropey middle relief core. Having said that, in manager Brad Ausmus’ bid to solidify the shoddy relief core, Anibal Sanchez will pitch out of the bullpen, which is a late-season luxury.  Prediction: The O’s have it, in four.  Ned Yost is taking so much heat right now, you’d never know he was the manager of a team that’s won a playoff game and is getting set to play in the ALDS. Well, here’s a few words on his behalf. Putting Yordano Ventura, a young starting pitcher, into a mid-inning mammoth situation was a very bad move – just ask Pedro Martinez. OK. But Yost is also getting heat for his sacrifice bunting from some of his own fans in addition to sabermetric folks, who last I looked are not managing in the playoffs today, tomorrow, or next year.  I believe in data, but, you know what? Sometimes data doesn’t mean a thing and it didn’t on Tuesday. If the Royals didn’t throw their kitchen sink at Oakland, and that sink was a mix of speed, sacrifices and the timely hit, we would not be talking about them right now. Can that kind of play work against a team like the Angels? Probably not. An escape like that certainly can’t happen every night, but we know that they’ll use the speed game to try and get under the skin of Angels pitchers, and that makes a lot of sense. If they can do that, perhaps they’ll be more mojo from Eric Hosmer, Salvador Perez and Lorenzo Cain, maybe some more timely hitting. Really, it’s up to the KC starting pitchers like James Shields, Jason Vargas and Ventura, who will pitch in Game 2 in the correct role, to try to shut down LA. If that happens, and Yost allows his real bullpen triumvirate to do what they do, well, I’m saying there’s a chance.  More likely, the bombastic bats of the Angels unleash four years of frustration out on the Royals, just as they did on all the American League West in 2014. It’s Mike Trout’s time to become the face of baseball, to be the kind of player whose name my wife knows. Trout led all year long, scaling walls with his glove and bat, and now he gets a crack at playing some very high-stakes baseball. Can he perform on an elite level under those set of circumstances? Easily. It’s what everybody else does that will determine if the Angels take care of business against a KC team with super-charged spring in their step, not to mention soaring ticket prices. There is a potential for problems with the starting rotation. Jered Weaver is pretty clear cut in starting Game 1 on Thursday, but how would he throw on short rest in a Game 4? How will Game 2 pitcher Matt Shoemaker respond after being on the shelf since 15 September with a mild rib-cage strain? CJ Wilson has been unreliable and he’s on the mound for Game 3. So now we’re seeing the real effects of the late-season loss of ace hurler Garrett Richards on the starters, and how that situation plays out will go a long way in determining how this series shakes out.  Otherwise, you just know that Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton would like to use this stage to tell everyone around baseball who has been maligning their contracts for the last few years to go suck it, and if they can recapture anything resembling their proud pasts, it would go a long way towards sending the Angels deep into October.  Ten seasons after the Nationals franchise played their last game in Montreal, the ex-Expos are now the darlings of the media, many of whom believe the franchise is on its way to a World Series title.  There’s a good reason for that: weaknesses are few and far between. What do you attack? The starting rotation? One that stole Doug Fister from Detroit for a bag of peanuts and a diet peach Snapple in the offseason? One that counts Gio Gonzalez’s 3.57 ERA as the worst in the bunch? One that just enjoyed a Jordan Zimmermann no-hitter? Nope. How about the relievers? Well, they have the second-best ERA in the league, but Rafael Soriano did blow six saves, so maybe there’s a glimmer of hope there. The lineup? They’re in the top third of the NL in nearly every category, and get a bit of pop here and there from the likes of Bryce Harper, Ian Desmond, Anthony Rendon and Adam LaRoche.  Balance. The Nats have it, everywhere, and now they’re reasonably healthy. The Washington Post tells us that the Nats had their full complement of players available for just 27 of 162 games, which meant that GM Mike Rizzo did a lot of maneuvering to keep DC’s heads above wear in the lean times. Now they’re near full strength, and on paper should oust San Francisco with relative ease.  Except that it’s not easy to oust the Giants with ease – just ask the Pittsburgh Pirates, mauled by them on Wednesday, 8-0 in Pittsburgh in the NL Wild Card game to move on to a matchup with the Nats. You can also ask the Phillies, Braves, Rangers, Reds, Cardinals and Tigers – those being the teams they rolled over en-route to two World Series titles in the last four seasons. Those Giants teams got on major postseason rolls in even-year seasons, and, well, an 8-0 win over the Buccos in an even-year season sounds like the start of something to me.  The well-documented difference between these teams and the title winning clubs is the pitching. No longer can the Giants rely on shut-down starters for fuel, with only Madison Bumgarner putting the fear into opposing lineups, like Pittsburgh’s, that managed just four hits, striking out 10 times in his complete game shutout on Wednesday. The only question with the Giants ace is whether he can chug beer better than he pitches?  "Stone Cold" Madison Bumgarner. pic.twitter.com/E0YYH91EAF  Jake Peavy is no slouch either, and looks bullish after coming over from the Red Sox before the trade deadline. That’ll help. After that, it’s a little bit of a crapshoot, especially against a lineup as formidable as Washington’s. So it’s a good thing that the bullpen is mostly tight and that this edition of the Giants can hit – Buster Posey, Michael Morse, Pablo Sandoval, and, as we saw on Wednesday, Brandon Crawford, who became the first shortstop in postseason history to hit a grand slam, which is a little hard to believe. We mustn’t forget Hunter Pence, who finds time to swing a stick between his motivational speaking engagements. Yes, there is magic in these Giants, and they may have just enough to at the very least put a scare into Washington.  Prediction: Upset special, Giants in five
David Lengel: With the American and National League Division Series beginning on Thursday, we break down the postseason match-ups