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I have no idea who’s going to win the National League Championship Series.

This goes beyond my usual “You can’t predict the outcome of a short series between two comparable teams” theme. It’s not just about that. If you gave me any other matchup between evenly-matched squads, I could come up with some kind of rationale for preferring one to the other, if only slightly. Heck, I’ll do just that tomorrow for the ALCS.

When it comes to the Dodgers and Phillies, though, I can’t choose. Both are very good teams, very balanced teams. Neither has some fatal flaw in construction that will be revealed in the next week. Neither manager is a dolt; Joe Torre is a bit overrated, but he’s shown himself to be a good post-season manager in all areas but roster assembly, and he’s even done a decent job at that this year. Charlie Manuel has specific tactical weaknesses that he’s gotten better at addressing, and he does helm the best base-stealing team ever.

Despite-or because of?-this confusion, I am as excited for this series as for any post-season series in memory. I cannot remember the last time I was this geeked for a Game One, and that extends to the ALCS as well. We have in front of us a week or two of fun, exciting baseball, and the lack of clarity about which of the teams will advance, the lack of even a mild favorite, makes it all the better.

Let’s work through the key points in the series, as I see them.

  1. Game Four: Greg Maddux or Clayton Kershaw? It’s that important to me. I think this decision by Torre could swing the entire series, and we won’t know until Sunday night what he’ll do with it. Greg Maddux is my favorite pitcher ever, maybe my third-favorite player ever, and I’ll tell you he has no business starting a critical post-season game against the Philadelphia Phillies ahead of Clayton Kershaw. Were it the Brewers, maybe. Were it the Padres, maybe. But to choose the soft-tossing right-hander over the devastating lefty against this team would be a mistake of huge proportions in the context of a short series. The gap between the two might swing the game… 10 to 15 percent the Phillies’ way. That’s my conservative estimate. You need four wins. There’s not another decision Joe Torre can make that will affect the Dodgers’ chances by two or three percent. None. This is the biggest decision Torre will have this season, and there is a clear right answer: Kershaw.

  2. The Dodgers are 3-0. The Dodgers’ regular season is effectively useless in gauging their team. The current Dodgers basically didn’t exist until last week, and they haven’t lost a game yet. Having a terrific leadoff hitter in Rafael Furcal and a terrific number-three hitter in Manny Ramirez makes this a better team than it was all season long. The notion of “peaking” is a soft idea connected to so many of the soft notions we hear about this time of the year. The Dodgers, however, are peaking simply because their roster is better now than it was at any point from April through September.

  3. The Dodgers don’t give up home runs. This isn’t just a park effect, although playing 18 road games in the two Sans-Diego and Francisco-helps. The Dodgers allowed an NL-low 123 homers, and their 74 homers allowed on the road was 13th in the league. The bottom four teams in the league all come from the NL West, so yes, there’s a Petco effect, but this is clearly a skill for the Dodgers, especially for the team’s relevant pitchers: Derek Lowe, Hiroki Kuroda, and Chad Billngsley all had home-run rates well below one per two starts, and the team’s top three relievers allowed just three homers in 165 innings.

  4. The Phillies aren’t the Cubs. In the Division Series, the Dodgers faced right-handed batters more than two-thirds of the time (67.3 percent). This played beautifully into the hands of their right-handed rotation, especially Kuroda and Billingsley, who both held right-handed batters under a .300 OBP in 2008. This, as much as any other factor, is why the Cubs’ offense stalled so badly. They simply were caught in brutal matchups.

    This won’t be the case for the Phillies, who can be expected to start at least two left-handed hitters and two switch-hitters, and they’re four of the team’s best players. Pat Burrell and Carlos Ruiz will play left field and catch, but Manuel will have the option of using Greg Dobbs at third base-and he absolutely should-and Geoff Jenkins in right field to start six lefty bats against the Dodgers’ right-handers. The platoon split of Billingsley-70 points each of OBP and SLG-dictates stacking up the lefties against him at least. Basically, this matchup isn’t nearly as good for the Dodgers’ hurlers, so even if they pitch as well, the results should not be as good.

  5. What Will Charlie Do? I think I mentioned that Charlie Manuel is growing on me, largely from his demeanor in press conferences, where he seems a cross between Bobby Bowden and Bobby Bowden’s grandpa. I never had a read on him with the Indians, but when you look at the Phillies’ basestealing, or their reasonably well-crafted bench, or the complete lack of drama around the team, you have to assign some credit to Manuel.

    The man has a critical decision in front of him, though, and it’s one that could play an important part in the course of the series. He has to find a way to separate Chase Utley and Ryan Howard in the lineup. That could mean Utley/Burrell/Howard, or Utley/Victorino/Howard, but if he bats the two lefties back to back, Joe Torre is going to make sure that the Phillies’ two stars never see a right-hander in a key situation between the sixth and eighth innings.* Remember, Torre never had a problem running a bullpen when he had the horses, and on this team, he’ll have specialist Joe Beimel and at least one of Kershaw and Hong-Chi Kuo in the pen. Howard can’t hit lefties, and Utley drops off a bit against them. It’s a significant difference, and if you separate the two with Victorino or Burrell, you at least introduce a cost to making pitching changes. Batting them back to back is a huge tactical error against a team with good lefty relievers and a manager who knows how to use them.

    (*If we could just get Torre, and all other managers, to recognize that platoon splits matter in the ninth inning as well, we’d be on to something.)

  6. Brad Lidge‘s next home run. Lidge is a popular target because of the memory of that long post-season home run he allowed to Albert Pujols at his peak, which immediately preceded a drop in his performance. The two weren’t related, but the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is pervasive in sports coverage because of its simplicity.

    This year, despite pitching much of the year in a good home-run park, Lidge has allowed just two long balls. He’s still a fly-ball pitcher; he’s just been, well, lucky. His HR/FB rate was under five percent, one of the lowest marks in the league.

    The problem for Lidge, and for the Phillies, is that Lidge’s third home run allowed is going to hurt very, very badly. There’s an inevitability to it, not because Lidge has some character flaw that will show itself at an inopportune time and cause him to give up a home run, but because he’s a hard-throwing fly-ball pitcher, and about one in 10 fly balls go for homers. It’s a math problem, really; maybe he continues to pitch in good fortune and doesn’t give up that third home run, but in a series this close, losing one game that you lead in the ninth inning may be too much to overcome.

What swings the series for me is the idea that Greg Maddux will start Game Four, the Phillies will win it, and that will make all the difference. I’d like to be wrong. Phillies in six.

Thank you for reading

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Richie
10/09
Regarding \'Point 3\', was there anything fluky (regarding their HR/FB rates) to the Dodgers giving up such few homers? If so, \'Point 6\' about Lidge would likewise apply to the pertinent Dodger pitchers too, then.
tcrother
10/09
The other possibility for your key point is that Torre may start Lowe on three days rest, setting up a normal rest amount for Game 7.
sblonder
10/09
This is by far the most likely outcome. Due to the extra game off between games 4 and 5, the Dodgers can start Lowe in Game 4 on the days rest and then come with Billingsley, Kuroda and Lowe to finish the series with full rest. I\'m surprised Joe missed this and that he didn\'t mention that Saito is off of the roster, making it more likely that Maddux will be saved for the bullpen.
ElAngelo
10/09
Especially given that this means he\'ll have both Kershaw and Maddux as long relief in Game Four after Lowe hits ~90 pitches, barring some 13-inning mess in Games 1-3.
Sophist
10/09
There\'s also the possibility of Utley/Werth/Howard, which was the lineup in 10 of their last 14 games this year (not including the final game with a lineup of reserves.) The last time the Phils faced LA Burrell hit between Utley and Howard (something Manuel learned to do against teams with more than 1 or 2 effective LHP.) But Burrell was ineffective (slumping) and was moved back to 5th, which is where he\'s stayed since 9/1.

Manuel is a gut-driven manager, though, and it wouldn\'t surprise me if he gets some rumblings that Burrell could be more effective again (after game 4 of the DS.)

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One thing that jumps out at me from the data on fangraphs re: Lidge is his shift in pitch selection this year. I do think this HR/FB likely is a flukely career low, but the rediscovery of his slider has been the favored reason for his bounce-back. He pitched it 43% in 06, 36% in 07. But in 08 56% of the time. He\'s a two-pitch guy (FB, SL) so his FB selection has accordingly dropped. What, if any, role could/does this play in his control of the HR? The number that jumps out to me in this regard is his career high IFFB%: up 7% from last year and 3% from his former high in 2005.
DavidK44
10/09
Wouldn\'t the same logic as to why Lidge will give up a costly home run apply to any Dodgers hard-throwing fly ball reliever (or for that matter, any other Phillie hard-throwing fly ball reliever).

Broxton had a 4.0 FB/HR%, and a similar ground ball rate to Lidge (stats courtesy of HBT). Wouldn\'t there be just as good of a chance that he\'s going to give up a costly home run?

I know that pointing out Lidge has been HR lucky is worth noting, but at the same time, he\'s basically no more likely to give up a HR than any other hard-throwing, fly ball inducing reliever, whether that be a Dodger or a Phillie. So really, why should that be a point to consider when predicting the series? Unless you want to argue the concept of \"he\'s due\", in which case, a coin that lands on tails 10 times in a row is \"due\" to land on Heads, right?
jsheehan
10/10
Because Broxton\'s career HR/FB is around 9.5%, and Lidge\'s in that same time is around 15%. (Thanks, Hardball Times.)
mickeymorley
10/09
I\'m a big Phillies fan and I really think that my blood pressure is so high because Manuel INSISTS on batting Howard and Utley back-to-back.
edman8585
10/09
What about Maddux for the first inning in game four so the Phillies load the lineup with lefties, and then Kershaw from innings 2 on?
fireants
10/10
Well, we got the answer to #5. Howard and Utley are batting back-to-back in Game 1. We\'ll have to wait and see how this plays out in the late innings.
EnderCN
10/10
So Lowe is cruising until he apparently injures his thumb, he struggles to record another out and gives up 2 HR which isn\'t anything like himself. THe announcers never mention this the entire rest of the game and ESPN never mentions it in their coverage.

Am I missing something here or is it pretty obvious that the thumb injury most likely caused a problem with Lowe? I mean it was night and day between how he pitched before it and after it.
bill1410
10/10
I watched the game, have read all the analysis today, and yes, I didn\'t see the thumb mentioned until I read Ender\'s comment here. I didn\'t even think of it myself. I thought Lowe was strangely distracted and thrown off by Ruiz at second in the 5th (when Rollins got out on the 3-2 count) and then Victorino at 2nd in the following inning seemed to make him flustered as well - hence, the bad pitch to Utley. Maybe he thought they were stealing signs? But then he did leave another pitch up to Burrell with no one on, so yes, maybe it was the thumb. Very good insight.