The NLCS continues with Game 7 on Monday, and that means that we are going to be making our baseball picks and playoff predictions for the game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals.

What an amazing six games we have seen thus far in this series! We haven’t quite seen that vintage extra innings game that has us all on the edges of our seats, but we might be right there tonight when these two teams square off for the seventh and final time here at AT&T Park.

We have to give the Giants all of the credit in the world. They could have easily just dropped off the face of the earth after losing Game 4 to fall behind the Cards 3-1 in this race to four wins. Their bats looked dead, their best arms were already depleted and beaten, and there was still another game to win just to get back home for two more must win games. The hardest two steps have been completed. Now though, is the chance for Matt Cain to make himself a hero in San Francisco baseball history, as he will get the ball on Monday night for one of the biggest starts of his entire career.

Kyle Lohse is going to be the man on the mound in this one for the Cardinals, but does it really matter? St. Louis is the team that just keeps finding ways to win. If this team could beat Kris Medlen and beat Gio Gonzalez after falling behind 6-0 with both games coming on the road, why couldn’t it ultimately end up winning Game 7 after losing two games and generating no offense whatsoever in those games? The Cards have historically made no sense whatsoever in the last two seasons, and that’s why we are backing them to find some way to get to the World Series and once again celebrate on someone else’s home field.

St. Louis Cardinals @ San Francisco Giants Game 7 Pick: St. Louis Cardinals +130

The NLCS continues with Game 6 on Sunday, and that means that we are going to be making our baseball picks and playoff predictions for the game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Giants might have kept their season alive, but that doesn’t mean that they are out of the woods nearly yet. This is a tough game to pick up a victory in, and more often than not, this will probably be the end of the road in spite of the fact that they are in front of their hometown crowd.

We really just don’t like this pitching matchup for the G-Men when push comes to shove. Ryan Vogelsong has pitched a couple of good games here in the playoffs, but he just doesn’t seem to be the man that we want to see on the hill with the entire season on the line. Meanwhile, the other man that is going to be hurling on Sunday night is Chris Carpenter. You would think that we would have a big problem with Carpenter, knowing that he hasn’t thrown more than six innings in a game yet this year. However, this is a man that has pitched in some huge games over the course of his career, including throwing a complete game shutout in the final game of last regular season to pitch the Cards into the second season.

On top of that, we just don’t trust the whole situation with the Giants. The bats still seem to be more inconsistent, the bullpen arms are all over the place, and in general, they don’t feel like the team that should be headed to the World Series, especially knowing that two games in a row are going to have to be won to get there from this point. It feels like San Fran gave everything that it had to win Game 5, and at this point, we feel like there is at least a 50/50 shot that St. Louis ends up claiming a victory and punching its ticket to the Fall Classic.

St. Louis Cardinals @ San Francisco Giants Game 6 Pick: St. Louis Cardinals +112

The 2012 MLB playoffs continue on Thursday in St. Louis, where the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants are going to do battle with one another. Don’t miss our MLB playoff picks and our Giants vs. Cardinals Game 4 NLCS predictions for the baseball playoffs!

For the second time this series, the Cardinals have pulled ahead of the Giants, and for the second time, the Giants are going to try to fight right back to take back control of the series and ensure that this soiree is going to go back to the Bay Area this weekend.

It’s going to be a tough pitching matchup for sure for both of these teams, as there are a lot of question marks surrounding both men. Adam Wainwright was trusted with the baseball in the biggest game of the season, Game 5 of the NLDS against the Washington Nationals, and he really screwed the pooch, allowing six runs in just 2.1 innings before getting the hook. He’s back out there for the first time in this series, and he is going to be facing Tim Lincecum, who is going to be making his first start of the playoffs tonight. Lincecum has been great in relief, but he was a lousy starter all year long. He never made up for that atrocious start to the season, and he never looked like a man that has Cy Young potential and the awards to back it up.

In the end, this is going to be a close series throughout, and we would be crazy to think that the Cardinals are going to win this game more than perhaps 55% of the time. That means that we have to take the Giants and their “Freak” and hope for the best out of Lincecum, or the worst for a second straight start out of Wainwright. Either way, we still think this is a game that could come down to just one swing of the bat or one single pitch.

San Francisco Giants @ St. Louis Cardinals Pick: San Francisco Giants +120

Our 2012 MLB playoffs picks continue on Wednesday night in St. Louis, where the St. Louis Cardinals battle it out with the San Francisco Giants. Join us for our MLB predictions for what should be a remarkable Game 3 of the ALCS.

The Cardinals and the Giants were statistically quite level over the course of the first two games of this series, as both went on their offensive explosions in just a few innings and generally were shut down aside from that. This could be a very similar game to discuss, knowing that both of these starting pitchers for tonight’s Game 3 are going to be dealing for sure.

But there is a real question as to whether Matt Cain is still ready to go for the rest of the playoffs. He has looked tired over the course of his first two games in the postseason, and he is leaving balls up in the zone and getting them blasted. He has allowed three home runs and has had two very short outings, though we must admit that it isn’t like his numbers are ghastly. Kyle Lohse has been the better of the two over the course of the start of the second season, and Lohse has pitched in more pressure packed situations. He threw seven flat out awesome frames against the Washington Nationals in Game 4 of the NLDS, and he arguably outpitched one of the best pitchers from the second half of the season, Kris Medlen in the Wild Card Game against the Atlanta Braves.

There really is no sign of Lohse slowing down, and we have to remember that he has still only been beaten three times over the course of this whole season. Cain probably has the more talent of the two of these men, but weary arms at this point over the course of the playoffs tend to get beaten. Especially with this game being here in St. Louis, it is definitely advantage Cardinals.

San Francisco Giants @ St. Louis Cardinals Pick: St. Louis Cardinals -123

Our 2012 MLB playoffs picks continue on Friday night in St. Louis, where the St. Louis Cardinals battle it out with the San Francisco Giants. Join us for our MLB predictions for what should be a remarkable Game 5 of the ALCS.

The Cardinals are on the verge of the World Series for the second straight year, and they are massive favorites to get the job done right here in front of their hometown crowd. If that turns out to be the case, they’ll end up hosting five consecutive games in the postseason, as Games 1 and 2 of the World Series are also going to be played here at Busch Stadium.

It’s not the friendliest pitching matchup in the world for either side though, and it is a bit surprising that the ‘total’ has come in so low at just 7.5. Remember that both teams have had one game with at least seven runs and one game with at least four in this series, and the idea of Lance Lynn and Barry Zito doing the starting with two bullpens that could be quite tired just doesn’t do it for us. Lynn was a wreck in Game 1 of this series, and even though the Cards did walk away with a 6-4 victory and never trailed in the game, the righty didn’t even make it long enough in the game to qualify for the win, as he lasted just 3.2 innings. Zito hasn’t pitched in nine days, and the hope is that the rest is doing well for him in this must-win game for the Giants.

In the end, the key stat is that the G-Men have won 12 straight games when Zito has been starting. The lefty hasn’t always been at his best, but he has done a good job of protecting leads. It’ll take a few runs to be scored tonight, but if the Giants can get to five, they should be able to stretch this series back to the Bay Area for Games 6 and 7 over the weekend.

San Francisco Giants @ St. Louis Cardinals Pick: San Francisco Giants +144

The NLCS continues with Game 2 on Monday, and that means that we are going to be making our baseball picks and playoff predictions for the game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals.

If the Giants can figure out how to take this game, we think that they are going to have a great shot at getting right back in this series with a shot of getting to the World Series. However, they have yet to win a game at home this year in the playoffs in three tries, and they clearly don’t have the better of the pitching matchup in this one.

Ryan Vogelsong has been great for the Giants over the course of the last couple of years, but he isn’t a man that is going to be able to come right out and throw eight scoreless frames. In fact, even though the bullpen is worn down after yesterday, it would be difficult to expect to see Vogelsong survive even six frames. Chris Carpenter clearly has a live arm and can do some real damage, but he too, is going to have his share of problems in this one, knowing that it is only his fifth start of the season after arm surgery. Both men did lead their teams to must-win victories in the first round of the playoffs and will be ready to go in this one, though.

And then comes the question about the bats for both teams. It feels like St. Louis has the better of the two sides, but in the end, we really don’t know. The San Francisco bullpen was marvelous at the end of last night’s game. If only Madison Bumgarner had pitched that well over the course of the first four innings… Tonight though, look for Vogelsong to find a way to scratch and claw something together, and Manager Bruce Bochy will figure out how to get the job done in the end to get this series back to St. Louis on level terms.

St. Louis Cardinals @ San Francisco Giants Game 2 Pick: San Francisco Giants -108

The 2012 MLB playoffs continue on Sunday in San Francisco, where the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals are going to do battle with one another. Don’t miss our MLB playoff picks and our Cardinals vs. Giants Game 1 NLCS predictions for the baseball playoffs!

It’s not normal that teams that are in the NLCS have their issues with starting pitching, but the truth of the matter is that both the Cards and the Giants have those issues. The injury to Jamie Garcia has forced Lance Lynn into starting action for St. Louis, while Madison Bumgarner is going to get another shot to start even though he has gotten the heck beat out of him over the course of his last eight starts or so. The question was there as to whether Tim Lincecum was going to get the first start in this one, but in the end, he is going to be held off for the time being.

Lynn is going to be a bit of a question mark here for the Cards, knowing that he pitched in relief three times over the course of the first four games in the NLDS, and now he has to turn around and start just a few days later. The last time that we saw Lynn, he was allowing a game winning homer in the ninth inning to Jayson Werth and the Washington Nationals. However, Lynn did win 18 games in the regular season, and it is hard to say that he isn’t going to be ready to go on Sunday night.

In the end, we know that we aren’t going to be counting out Lynn and the Cards. They can come on the road and win games in this series for sure, and there is no reason to think that this is anything less than a 50/50 proposition for both of these teams on Sunday.

St. Louis Cardinals @ San Francisco Giants Pick: St. Louis Cardinals +128