Monday, September 30, 2013

Cardinals clinch homefield advantage. Will face either Pirates or Reds in NLDS.

The Cardinals finished off their sweep of the lowly Cubs yesterday, winning 4-0 behind Joe Kelly.  As a result, the Cardinals edged the Braves by one game for the best record in the NL and home field advantage through the NLCS (the AL gets the home field advantage in the World Series, thanks to Bud Selig's stupid All Star game rule).

This caps off a strong finish for the Cards, who went 19-8 in September.  Getting home field advantage is huge for the team, as they went 54-27 (.667) at home versus 43-38 (.530) on the road.

First up for the Cardinals will be the NLDS against either the Pirates or the Reds, who will face off in a one-game playoff on Tuesday. 

The Cardinals may prefer to face the Reds rather than the Pirates, as they went 11-8 against the Reds and just 9-10 versus the Pirates.  However, the good news is that, if the Cards do have to face the Pirates, they will likely only face Francisco Liriano, who went 3-0 with a 0.75 ERA against the Cards this year, once during the NLDS.

In any case, we'll find out who the Cardinals face sometime tomorrow night and I'll give you a more detailed breakdown of the NLDS on Wednesday.

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