Rangers v Cardinals World Series Predictions

[FWHORN]

Much like Detroit, St. Louis has an ace in Carpenter who shortens a series as you expect to lose when he gets his two starts. Against Verlander the Rangers got a win in one of his two starts and if they can get a similar win against Carpenter you have to like the Rangers chances.

Starting pitching beyond Carpenter has been a weakness for St Louis as well so the Rangers deficiency in that aspect wont be as big a factor though the Cardinals also have a strong bullpen so the ability to get to their starters wont swing a game entirely. The edge overall with pitching is to Cardinals slightly because of the Carpenter factor but no where near as huge as it was last year with the Giants and I think the bullpens are even or just barely an edge to the Rangers.

Offensively Pujols is perhaps the best hitter in the game today, but is a bit hobbled. The Cardinal lineup is solid top to bottom and the Cardinals have shown an ability to score a ton of runs but still the edge here has to go to the Rangers. Young coming on makes that line up so scary and what can you say about Cruz in the seven hole no less. I expect several slug fest games.

Do not underestimate the LaRussa factor. He is the wild card in that he can manage a team to a win they otherwise would have lost. Cardinals getting home field is a lot like last year where Rangers in spite of having a worse record than the Yankees got home field, baseball gods evening things out.

I like the Rangers in six winning in games 2, 3, 4 and 6.

 

[Knoxville-Horn]

I could be wrong, but it seemed as if Verlander may have just been tired during the Detroit series. Wasn't he playing on shorter rest between starts? If so, could Carpenter also have similar issues?

 

[majorwhiteapples]

Rangers in 6.

 

[biganakhanhda]

Would love to win it in 5 in front of our fans at home! But I'll take 6 or 7.

Go Rangers!

 

[Hook 'Em Danno]

I have very little confidence that any member of the starting rotation will go very deep into any ballgame, so I do not have any comfort level at all with this series. The good news is that, other than Carpenter, the Cardinals appear to have the same problem, so we could have some slow-pitch softball like scores in this one. My head says Cards in 6. But, I'm going totally from the heart on this one and picking the Rangers in 6, though it sure would be awesome to do it in 5 (which I think will happen if the starters return to regular season form).

 

[Texas___Fight]

I don't care where, when, or how....Just Do It!!!!

 

[orangecat1]

I can't get off of the high, unless I look at Freese's average in the NLCS, over .500!

Rangers in 4.

I just don't see the Cards getting any clutch hits in the games, they will be starry-eyed and its our year to be the surprise pitching geniuses.

Our starters will go 6+ every game, we will pitch around Pujols, and pitch to Freese, getting him out 2/3 of the time.

 

[Knoxville-Horn]

^^^
I'll have what you're having.

 

[orangecat1]

check out Freese:

1 NLCS 6 25 22 7 12 3 0 3 9 0 0 2 2 .545 .600 1.091 1.691 24 2 1 0 0 0
1 WS 2 6 5 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 .400 .500 .600 1.100 3 0 0 0 0 0


His average in the World Series is down to .400 from his .545 in the LCS, and yes, I will be happy when his avg. goes down to .333.

I don't know how long he's been hot, but wow, he has to come down to earth at some point? If he stays between .400 and .545, I'm pretty sure we lose the series.

Without looking yet, I don't think we have one guy hitting above his season avg. in the World Series and St. Louis has at least two, the PH phenom,(2 for 2). and this guy. All we need is for those two guys to come back to earth, and for us to come even just slightly alive, and we win the series in 5.

When I predicted Rangers in 4, I was thinking our hitters had come alive-re: game 6 against Detroit, I thought we were back on track with everybody ready to hit.- I didn't expect that many runs in one inning, I just thought it seemed as if we were ready to have decent outings each game, 7-10 hits, etc.

If we get that 7-10 hits in game one, we're ahead 2 games to 0 and we are looking at sweeping. And Carpenter would have exited problably one or two innings earlier.

We need about 5-8 more quality at-bats a game to get in position to win the next three.