Giants vs. Cardinals: Game 1 Time, TV Info, Live Stream and More

If you are a fan of teams that consistently draft, trade and develop well, the 2014 National League Championship Series is built for you. The San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals are no strangers to this moment, with the two teams representing the NL in the World Series every year since 2010. 

The Giants got here behind incredible pitching and timely hitting in the Division Series against Washington. They scored just nine runs in 36 innings but only allowed nine runs and each game by one run. Bruce Bochy's team always manages to fly under the radar in the regular season, but few teams have been better in October over the last five years. 

On the other side, St. Louis pummeled Los Angeles into submission. The Cardinals hit for no power in the regular season with 105 homers, then proceeded to hit four in two games against Clayton Kershaw and eight in the series. 

In an era when teams are constantly spending huge sums of money in free agency chasing a World Series, it's refreshing to see that the Giants and the Cardinals maintain consistency without having to spend exorbitant amounts of money. 

Here's our in-depth breakdown of Game 1 of the NLCS between the Giants and the Cardinals. 

Where: Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri

When: Saturday, October 11

Start Time: 8 p.m. ET

Watch: Fox

Live Stream: MLB TV (requires subscription)

Player	IP	ERA	WHIP	K-BB
Madison Bumgarner (SF)	217.1	2.98	1.09	219-43
Adam Wainwright (STL)	227.0	2.38	1.03	179-50

Biggest Game 1 Question For San Francisco

How Will Mike Morse's Return Impact Lineup?

Alex Brandon/Associated Press

The Giants weren't a great offensive team in the regular season when Mike Morse was healthy, but they were downwright anemic against the Nationals. In addition to scoring just nine runs in the Division Series, they only had 35 hits. Five players in the Game 4 starting lineup had averages of .211 or worse. 

Since Madison Bumgarner will be pitching in Game 1, the Giants probably won't have to score much. He's only allowed 10 hits and two earned runs in 16 innings this postseason. 

Mike Morse, who wasn't available in the Division Series, is expected to be on the roster against St. Louis. per Hank Schulman of The San Francisco Chronicle. He's not a game-changer in the middle of Bochy's lineup, but he had the second-highest slugging percentage (.475) and tied with Pablo Sandoval for the third-most homers (16) on the team. 

The oft-injured slugger has also been consistent against right- and left-handed pitchers throughout his career. He's got an .821 OPS against lefties and .803 against righties, per Baseball Reference, so Bochy doesn't have to worry about platooning him. 

There will be the question of rust for Morse. He's only played in one big league game since September 1, going 0-for-2 against San Diego on September 19. 

Bochy does have to worry about Morse's defensive (in)ability. Among players with at least 500 innings played, he had the fourth-worst ultimate zone rating per 150 games and cost the Giants nine runs, per FanGraphs. Defensive replacements late in the game will be essential, but if he can hit at all, it upgrades the offensive output held down by Travis Ishikawa and Juan Perez in the Division Series. 

Biggest Game 1 Question For St. Louis

How Healthy Is Adam Wainwright?

It's not a story that's gotten much play nationally, but Adam Wainwright may not be completely healthy heading into the NLCS. He was awful in Game 1 of the Division Series, allowing 11 hits and six runs in 4.1 innings against the Dodgers. 

If you want to call that performance an anomaly, that's fine. Baseball is a weird game where even the best pitchers can be humbled. Then came word from Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Cardinals manager Mike Matheny kept Lance Lynn available in case he needed to start a potential Game 5:

"

We’ve got two guys on regular rest; it wouldn’t be a stretch to have either one of them go.

There’s no question that Waino has been fighting it. I haven’t made that a secret, and neither has he. It’s all going to come down to how he feels. The likelihood of him saying, ‘I can’t go’ is very slim. But it is a possibility that something might not feel right.

"

Wainwright did have a period of games in August that sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of his 2014 season. He posted a 5.17 ERA, 1.435 WHIP in 38.1 innings over six starts. In the other five months of the year, his ERA was under 2.00 four times and never went above 3.57, per Baseball Reference. 

At the end of August, Wainwright admitted that he went through a dead-arm period, via Goold:

September did see a return to form for Wainwright with a 1.38 ERA, 0.897 WHIP and 5.80 strikeout-to-walk ratio, via FanGraphs. Yet when you look at the game against Los Angeles, combined with Matheny's comments, it makes you wonder if there isn't a bigger problem. 

As good and deep as the Cardinals' rotation is, they need Wainwright to be great if he's going to be matched up with Bumgarner multiple times. A dead arm, as Doug Miller of MLB.com wrote in 2009, "is an overall feeling of general, non-specific fatigue."

Wainwright has been ridden hard throughout his career and especially the last two years with 468.2 innings in the regular season and 39.1 innings in the playoffs since 2013. There are only so many pitches in an arm before you start feeling it. 

Given the way he turned things around in September, there's no reason to think Wainwright has hit the skids. It would just be easier to believe he was close to full health with a better performance in the Division Series. 

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