In the NLCS Tony LaRussa was forced to use his bullpen at an almost unbelievable rate: 55% of the innings were pitched by Cardinal relievers. In only 24.1 innings the St. Louis starters gave up 19 runs to the Brewers, an offense that does not measure up to Texas' in any way. It is obvious that if the Cardinals are going to win one of two things need to happen: their starting pitchers need to go deep into games AND shut down the explosive Rangers offense OR the Cardinal offense needs to out hit the Ranger offense. Ideally the Cardinals would exercise option number one, however the way they have been pitching throughout the playoffs it appears that, with the exception of any game Chris Carpenter starts, it is going to turn into a slugfest, followed by a battle of bullpens.
The fact is that as bad as the Cardinal starters have been the Texas starters have been worse. In the ALCS Texas pitching gave up 25 runs, 21 were given up by the starters. The relievers gave up only four runs, on four solo HRs, the entire series. When Texas brought in a reliever the Tigers were completely shut down, allowing the Rangers to come back and win two games in extra innings. The premier reliever in the LCS was Alexi Ogando, who in four appearances pitched more innings (7.2) than all but two starters on both the Cardinals AND the Rangers, and those two starters got two starts. Ogando is the biggest weapon the Rangers have in the bullpen, in his 7.2 innings her had 10 strikeouts, compare that to the "ace" of the team, C.J. Wilson's 11 SOs in 10.2 innings and you begin to understand how dangerous Ogando is.
Ogando isn't the only weapon coming out of the Rangers' bullpen. Mike Adams and Neftali Feliz have also dominated this postseason, with Adams getting a win and Feliz getting a save in the LCS. In fact, all four of Texas' ALCS wins came out of the bullpen. Normally I would say that this is a trend tat has to stop in order to win a championship, but this year I don't think that is the case. With Ogando, a pitcher who WAS a starter all year and Mike Adams, a shut down reliever, ready to go at any time the Rangers pitchers can go out there with a "just don't blow it" mentality. Because with the offense they have that's all they have to do, to borrow a term from football, they simply have to "game manage" let the offense do what it does and win the game and the series for Texas.
I believe that the starters for the Rangers will be able to game manage enough for Nelson Cruz, Michael Young and the Texas offense to win the series, with a little help from Alexi Ogando, in SIX games.
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