2028 NL Wild Card Game Preview: STL @ SF

[mikereds]

Tomorrow, the St. Louis Cardinals face off against the San Francisco Giants in a PBA winner-take-all NL Wild Card Game.  The loser of this game will be disappointed, but will breathe a sigh of relief that they won't have face the powerhouse Brewers in a best of 7 series.  Conversely, the winner of this game will have their joy fade quickly when they have to start scouting the defending champs.

But that is a situation for another day.  Let's focus instead on how these two talented teams reached the postseason:

Cardinals GM Tim Lentz made a big splash in free agency, signing former Angels slugger Patrick Leonard to play DH for the 2028 season.  All Leonard did was put himself in the NL MVP conversation and will collect an extra $3 million if he wins it.  The stats powering Leonard's MVP campaign are impressive.  He holds a .292 average, .953 OPS, 111 Runs, 54 HR's and 136 RBI's.  All of those stats excepts for homers are career high marks for the 35-year old.  On the pitching side, the Cardinals had impressive rookie starter Luis Detres, who recorded 14 wins, 2.65 ERA and 239 K's in 31 starts.  But Detres suffered a major injury in mid-September, and now St. Louis will have to try to navigate the playoffs without their newfound ace.  The Cardinals might have to turn to 39-year old control pitcher Jose Quintana and hope the old horse still has something left.  The rest of the Cardinals pitching staff is pretty ordinary and won't scare too many PBA teams.  Even if the Cardinals get past the Giants, it's unlikely they go will go much further in the playoffs.  Their World Series hopes ride on Leonard suddenly going thermo nuclear red hot and having a few other St. Louis hitters join him.

Like an aging college football coach who announces that he will retire after an upcoming bowl game, Giants manager Dave Twibell has declared that he's stepping away from baseball and won't be returning for the 2029 season.  The news shocked the franchise, who became one of the PBA's best farm systems and organizations overall under Twibell's expert guidance.  San Francisco will surely be inspired to try to help their revered coach go out as a PBA winner.  Leading the way will be breakout star OF Juan Campos, who powered the Giants with 47 homers and 114 RBI's during the regular season.  The rest of the Giants team is a very well-rounded group of talented 20-somethings, as is the norm under the Twibell era.  The Giants have a very solid rotation, led by righty Shane Baz with a 3.19 ERA and 1.02 WHIP.  But stealing show as of late is #1 PBA prospect Alfredo Estevez, who came up to the bigs in June and put up excellent stats in his 19 starts with a 10-2 record.  Thus, the Giants might be a little more dangerous than their regular season win-loss record would seem to indicate.

Taking a closer look at this match-up in particular, the Giants and Cardinals played 6 times during the regular season.  The Giants won 4 of those 6 games.  In analyzing this series, it's tempting to reduce this series to the hitting of Leonard vs the pitching of the Giants.  So that is exactly what I'll do.  The Giants have three right-handed pitchers who are on hot streaks in Baz, Estevez and reliever Ricky Valencia.  In contrast,  Leonard is going through a nasty cold spell.  He's only 3 for 31 in his last 10 games, with 0 homers and 1 RBI.  In the nip-and-tuck play-in game versus the Braves, Leonard only went 1 for 4 and left 3 runners stranded.

Pivotal Questions:

Who will start on the mound for the Giants?  If they prevail, how will this setup their rotation for the formidable Milwaukee series?

Can someone carry the Cardinals offense if Leonard stays cold?  Perhaps lefty 1B Josh Weyer?

Despite the good pitching, San Francisco's offense has been pretty sluggish in the last few weeks.  Was that just a sign of resting players for the post-season or is the Giants lack of run support going to cause problems?

Prediction:

In one game anything can surely happen, but given recent history I think the Giants are the more likely team to prevail.  Home field advantage in a pitcher's park versus Leonard can't hurt either.  I predict the Giants will win this game 7-3.