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Insight, observations (and whatever else comes to mind) on the trails of the team that ended the quarter century-long parade drought in the City of Brotherly Love - the Philadelphia Phillies.



Sunday, October 12, 2008

NLCS: Game 3 Lineups (prediction)

Here are the lineups for tonight's Game 3:

PHILLIES

1. Jimmy Rollins, SS
2. Shane Victorino, CF
3. Chase Utley, 2B
4. Ryan Howard, 1B
5. Pat Burrell, LF
6. Jayson Werth, RF
7. Pedro Feliz, 3B
8. Carlos Ruiz, C
9. Jamie Moyer, P


DODGERS

1. Rafael Furcal, SS
2. Andre Ethier, RF
3. Manny Ramirez, LF
4. Russell Martin, C
5. Nomar Garciaparra, 1B
6. Casey Blake, 3B
7. Matt Kemp, CF
8. Blake DeWitt, 2B
9. Hiroki Kuroda, P


The only major change in either lineup is Joe Torre's decision to start Nomar Garciaparra over James Loney at first place. Honestly, I'm not surprised.

Despite Loney's production in the series (he's 3-for-7 with two walks), the right-handed Garciaparra doesn't matchup better against the left-handed Loney against Moyer.... he also has a pretty good history of hitting against the ageless Phils pitcher.

In his career, Garciaparra is hitting .417 (15-for-36) off Moyer with one home run and five RBIs.

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Manny Ramirez also fares fairly well against Moyer -- he's hit .340 (18-for-53) with 10 home runs and 20 RBIs).

But I have a feeling the Phillies are winning Game 3, despite those numbers and despite the desperation of the Dodgers, who need to win this thing to stay in the series.

Why does my gut tell me it's a Phillies win? There's a reason Jamie Moyer had 16 wins and a 3.71 ERA this year - he doesn't toss back to back bad outings in a row.

Last week he struggled with command and was done in Milwaukee after four innings. I think he's too good and too smart to not pitch 6 solid today.

Also, as you may have read below, Hiroki Kuroda has owned the Phils' bats this year (he's given up 2 runs on 4 hits in 13 innings... and the Phils are hitting .095 off him).

But he was a complete mystery the first time they saw him. The second time, I'll give Kuroda credit.

But I think the Phils left-handed heavy lineup will benefit from seeing him a third time.

1 Comments:

Blogger Ant$ said...

THANK YOU JAMIE MOYER!!!!!!!!!!! :-(

October 12, 2008 9:49 PM 

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