As for the Dodgers, they won the National League West for the 5th straight year, with a 104-58 record. They got here by beating the Arizona Diamondbacks in a sweep in the Divisional Round. This is the Dodgers' second consecutive appearance in the National League Championship Series, and 12th all-time (with this being their third appearance in the past five seasons). In 2016, they lost in six games to the Chicago Cubs, the eventual World Series winner. Los Angeles is seeking to make the World Series for the first time since 1988. The Dodgers are now 72-89 all time in the playoffs.
This is the third postseason meeting between the Cubs and Dodgers. The clubs have split their two previous postseason meetings. Los Angeles swept Chicago in the 2008 NLDS (3–0) and the Cubs beat the Dodgers in the 2016 NLCS in six games (4–2). During the regular season, the Dodgers won four of the six meetings between the teams.
Here are the dates and times for every games in this series:
October 14 Chicago Cubs @ Los Angeles Dodgers Dodger Stadium 8:08 PM
October 15 Chicago Cubs @ Los Angeles Dodgers Dodger Stadium 7:38 PM
October 17 Los Angeles Dodgers @ Chicago Cubs Wrigley Field
October 18 Los Angeles Dodgers @ Chicago Cubs Wrigley Field
October 19† Los Angeles Dodgers @ Chicago Cubs Wrigley Field
October 21† Chicago Cubs @ Los Angeles Dodgers Dodger Stadium
October 22† Chicago Cubs @ Los Angeles Dodgers Dodger Stadium
This has been a tale of two seasons for these two teams. Los Angeles was the talk of the first half of the season, getting off to a blistering start to the year,. They were beating everybody and everything in sight, and looked to be well on their way to breaking the record for most wins in a season. Once the 2nd half of the season got rolling, the wheels seemed to fall off. It looked like, at one point, the Dodgers might even lose their once mighty grip on the West. But as the season drew to a close they managed to get things figured out. A lot of that had to do with the outstanding hitting of Justin Turner. Not only did Turner have a solid year during the regular season, he hit .461 and drove in five runs during the divisional round. he;s getting hot at the right time. Corey Seager, who had a solid start to the year but slowed a little in the 2nd half of the year, looked better at the plate in the series but still seems to lack some of his pop as he continues to play in the aftermath of a nagging elbow injury. Around this time of year, the discussion always comes up about guys stepping their game up and Austin Barnes really did that in the divisional series, going four for eight in the last series, driving in three runs and belting a huge home run in game three.
Pitching has been just as important for the Dodgers, as Clayton Kershaw seems he has shaken off some of his bad memories of post seasons past. He still had a slightly high ERA, it was at 5.48 for the one game he pitched, but it is still better then what he'd done in performances past. Then there's Yu Darvish, who pitched five strong innings in his game three win. One of the strong suits for LA right now is that they also boast a strong bullpen. When you have guys like Brandon Morrow and Kenley Jansen, and it just got deeper with Kenta Maeda proving his slider can devastate in relief. Then there is the fact that the Dodgers now have a solid four starters to rely on, which means it doesn’t have to throw Kershaw out there on short rest. It makes the Dodgers a tougher team to play against.
As good as the Dodgers were in the first half of the year, the Cubs were in the 2nd half of the year. They closed out the season going 49-25 down the stretch to get back to the top in the Central. And they match up pretty well against the Dodgers right now. There's no denying that the Cubs have good hitters like Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, and Kyle Schwarber. But they didn't look quite as dominant against the Nationals. The Cubs’ bats weren’t exactly moving Chicago toward baseball euphoria either. Against the Nationals, Jon Jay, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo combined to go 11-for-51 for a combined .220 batting average. That can't really be helping them now in this series, the bats really need to wake up. They also need the pitching staff to find its way again.
Kyle Hendricks has pitched great since coming back from his injury. During the divisional round, he had 13 K's in 11 innings of work. Jon Lester looked OK in his outings in the last round, so he should be solid to go in this round as well. The wild card in all of this is Jake Arrieta. Arrieta didn’t allow an earned run in Game 4, but he walked five in his four innings of work and needed 90 pitches to bob and weave his way through four frames. Arrieta pitched much better in the second half, but he hasn’t been himself from either a control or a command standpoint this season. His velocity has also been down. If Jake can find his game again, it might help give the Cubs more of a chance in this series.
Going into this series, I'm not exactly getting the same vibe from the Cubs that I did a season ago. They seemed a little out of it against Washington, but managed to pull it out in the end in game five. Now they're going up against a rested Dodgers team with Clayton Kershaw and Rich Hill over the first two games. LA enters Saturday with reinvigorated pitchers and an offense that is taking pitches and producing runs the way it had at the beginning of the season. As much as I want to see the Cubs go back to tangle again for a world title, I just don't think they have enough of the horses right now to be able to pull it off I think the Dodgers are too good.
Pick: Dodgers in 6!
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