National League Wild Card Prediction
New York Mets v San Francisco Giants
Lance Iversen-USA TODAY Sports
The NL Wild Card game is always exciting, but something that might be even more exciting than that is the race for the NL Wild Card. No matter what, the two spots that are contended for are always fought for until the very last game of the season, this year is no different. The three teams contesting for the NL Wild Card are the New York Mets, San Francisco Giants, and St. Louis Cardinals. All of these teams seem like they would fit perfectly inside the NL side of the postseason, but out of those three teams, only two will get into the postseason. The New York Mets are +1 above and the San Francisco Giants are in the second WC spot. The Cardinals are a GB of the Giants, but that doesn’t mean anything until the regular season is over.
The New York Mets look like they will ride into the top WC spot because their next games will be against a weak Philadelphia Phillies team where the Mets will start two of their top pitchers. In the game today, the Mets will start Bartolo Colon against Phil Klein and the Mets offense has been one of the best in the past month. In their last game of the season, they will start Noah Syndergaard against Jerad Eickhoff. The Mets don’t look like they are going to give up either of these two games and will most likely finish on top of the NL WC spot. The Mets could still get knocked out of the postseason if they were to lose both of these games and St. Louis were to win both of their games. It just seems unlikely that the Mets would give up these two games, but this is baseball, so anything can happen.
The San Francisco Giants are a lot more interesting because they hold the second NL WC spot, but have to play against the Dodgers two more times and one of those times will be against Clayton Kershaw. Today the Giants and Dodgers will face off in San Francisco and the Dodgers will start Clayton Kershaw and the Giants will start rookie Ty Blach. Even though the Giants beat the Dodgers 9 – 3 yesterday, don’t count the Dodgers out of dominating these next two games. The Dodgers started rookie prospect, Julio Urias and played a string of relief pitchers yesterday, so anything can happen in these next two games. If the Giants want to stay in the NL WC, they will need to either go 1 – 1 in these next two games or go 2 – 0, because unless they got 2 – 0, their chances in the postseason will be based on the wins/loses of the St. Louis Cardinals. The best chance for the Giants to stay in the postseason is to stay consistent offensively and to not rely on the relief pitching in any capacity.
The St. Louis Cardinals are not in the WC game as of right now, but that can change. If they were to get into the WC game, they will basically need to win their next two games. In reality, they don’t have too, but don’t count on the Mets or Giants to give up their next two games. The Cardinals will play the Pirates today and tomorrow and the Cardinals will start Michael Wacha against Chad Kuhl today and Adam Wainwright against Ryan Vogelsong tomorrow. These two games will be in St. Louis where the Cards are 36 – 43, which is not too good, but they are riding a two game win streak. For the Cardinals to get into the postseason, they are going to need to play the baseball they have all year because it looks like that’s what the Mets and Giants are not giving any room for them to get back into the race.
Final Predictions of NL WC Game: New York Mets v San Francisco Giants
