Breaking down the National League Championship Series
By Sam Clancy
Oct 7, 2014; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants high five fans along the outfield wall after defeating the Washington Nationals in game four of the 2014 NLDS baseball playoff game at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
The St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants are meeting again in the National League Championship Series. The Cardinals made it four straight trips to the NLCS and the Giants have never lost a playoff series with Bruce Bochy as their manager. The Cardinals made it here by beating the best pitcher in the game twice, while the Giants beat the best team in the National League in four games.
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The Giants hit .125 with runners in scoring position against the Nationals and the Cardinals scored 72 percent of their runs in the seventh inning of the games.
The rematch of the 2012 NLCS will have many of the same faces, but some of the players that came up the biggest will not be there. Angel Pagan, Marco Scutaro and Barry Zito for the Giants, and Carlos Beltran, David Freese and Chris Carpenter for the Cardinals all played key roles in the result in 2012 and won’t play in this series.
This is a rematch in name and hopefully in drama, and this is how they stack up now.