(3) St. Louis Cardinals vs. (2) Los Angeles Dodgers

He's there. I just expect more in general. I'm an LA sports fan so I have very high expectations. He has that injury mental block. When he gets completely past that, he will be 2011 PED Kemp again.

 

I like women and I don't go black.

I know Irish..."racist". Go ahead say it.

 

probably Zach Lee

 

With Ryu, I'm more concerned with the command than the velocity. If he can come out and put up some zeroes early, giving us a chance to score first, we'll be gravy. I know Lackey has done well in the postseason before, but he's been declining and we need to hit him harder than we did with Lynn for sure.

 

I'd say an early run(s) in the first inning would be HUGE

 

Yeah the Dodgers need to set the tone and score early!! Ryu needs to have his fastball working cause in his last start it was flat and stuggling to hit 90mph. I read that they will have a short leash on Ryu and Haren will be ready to pitch in game 3 if they need him. Kershaw has to be the choice in game 4 if Ryu leaves the game early for Haren. I hope they can score early and often and get the redbird fans out of it early! :thumbsup:

 

For whatever reason I'm not scared about Ryu. Have a feeling he'll be fine, go 6 innings and give up 2 or 3. We just need to a score, Lackey doesn't have a fastball like Lynn or any of their flame throwers so let's home we tee off on him

 

well, let us also recognize that this Dodger team is indeed a bunch of free swingers, so plus fastballs aren't the only thing that can trip them up. we watched Peavy throw about 2 strikes to them over 7 innings not too long ago, owning their asses with a bunch of off-speed shit and just movement in general..everybody in our lineup just hackin at ball after ball. that was the worst game of the season, IMO, because it was Peavy and it was the stinkin Gnats raining on the eventual parade. Kemp looked like utter doo-doo that game. shit pissed me off to no end. i don't even like thinkin about it right now, but i feared they would grip the bats tight and wave at anything close before game 2 the other day. such an up and down team we have..flyin by the seat of their pants mentally.

this we know..like many of you have said..Lackey's not throwing gas, so we can probably assume that he's gonna nibble around the strike zone and maybe throw them a small amount of actual strikes today. will the LAD lineup have the nads ( or smarts, as professional hitter Zack Greinke puts it) to take pitches, work the count and make Lackey give them pitches to hit? this is one of those games that Mattingly talked about after that loss to Peavy..STL has a vet with tons of experience on the mound and one who's capable of sticking to a gameplan. it's very likely that the Dodgers are going to have force Lackey to give them something to hit..he might even be willing to walk 2 or 3 hitters consecutively and LAD has to allow him to do it. all Mattingly has to do is leave a game log from that Peavy/Gnats game from that division clinching series in every locker today and remind them that they can be had if they don't bring the right approach.

as far as Ryu goes, i figured Haren would be on call..wouldn't be mad if they decided to split 8 innings between the 2 and get us directly to Kenley. however, for the sake of long term success, i'd just like to see us take a 5-3 lead into the 8th and have League make another successful appearance like he did last game. we need some momentum from the pen ( outside of Kenley, who looks like he's locked and loaded). i would like to see Turner get the start tonight and hit 2nd..Puig to the leadoff spot.

 

Three pre game double doubles overnighted for his pregame meal should make him ready

 

that's true. so now we wait to see which team shows up. the team that led MLB in OBP and was 6th in walks, or the team that let Peavy make them fish for bad pitches all night a little while back.

 

the times that Carpenter's really hurt us, there were guys already on base. putting Carpenter on with 1 or 2 guys already on..don't know if that's a really good idea with Matt Holliday coming up. Holliday's hurt us too. Carpenter plated 3 on that double in Game 1, so we had nowhere to put him anyway.

now, if Matt Holliday is behind Nelson Cruz..by all means..pitch to Cruz. but if it's JJ Hardy and/or Steve Pearce?..you gotta intentionally walk Cruz. i wouldn't recommend drilling anybody though..don't need any mishaps..opposing team firing back and injuring one of our own, things escalating and key guys gettin suspended, or even sparking the opposing team just the way the Dodgers always seem to be sparked after our guys get drilled. i'd like to see us just play a clean game.

 

AJ said they were gonna discuss a new plan for Carpenter..i'm not sure they need a new one for Ryu though because Carpenter's 2-10 against Ryu. but who knows how long Ryu lasts and the rest of our guys definitely need help with Carpenter. i'm on a knee, praying that Brandon League catches a Super Mario star and can run off a few more respectable appearances.