MLB Playoffs 2014: Day 8 Schedule, Updated ALCS and NLCS Predictions

After Friday's opening course, Major League Baseball's League Championship Series dive into the main course with all four teams in action. The Kansas City Royals look to take control of the American League Championship Series against Baltimore, while the St. Louis Cardinals will try to hold home field against San Francisco. 

Despite entering the postseason as an unknown commodity, the Royals continue to defy expectations. They won their fourth extra-inning game in the playoffs thanks to two home runs from Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas in Game 1 of the ALCS.

In the National League, the Giants give the ball to Madison Bumgarner. The lanky left-hander has been superb this postseason with 16 strikeouts and two earned runs in 16 innings. The Cardinals will have their ace, Adam Wainwright, on the mound, but he's got a lot to prove after allowing 11 hits and six runs in 4.1 innings against Los Angeles in Game 1 of the National League Division Series. 

We've got all the information you need to get ready for a full evening of playoff baseball, including predictions for both games. 

Game	Pitching Matchup	Start Time (ET)	Network
ALCS Game 2: Kansas City Royals at Baltimore Orioles (Royals lead series 1-0)	Yordano Ventura vs. Bud Norris	4 p.m.	TBS
NLCS Game 1: San Francisco Giants at St. Louis Cardinals	Madison Bumgarner vs. Adam Wainwright	8 p.m.	FOX

Kansas City vs. Baltimore Preview

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Proving just how completely random baseball is, the Kansas City Royals have blasted seven home runs in five playoff games. In 162 regular-season games, they had a total of 95.

We were conditioned to believe that their success was predicated on speed and defense. While those are still two fundamental parts of why Kansas City made the playoffs this season, we underestimated how much power the lineup had. 

In particular, Moustakas is reminding everyone what made him a highly touted prospect coming through the system. Prior to the 2011 season, when the Royals had the best farm system in baseball, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus (subscription required) named Moustakas as the top player in the system:

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No player in the minors can match Moustakas' bat speed. He can easily allow balls to travel deep in the zone and then crush them with a swing that gets the barrel of the bat into the zone quickly while leaving it there for a long time. Beyond his plus-plus power due to strength and tremendous wrists, he's also an excellent pure hitter who had more extra-base hits (77) than strikeouts (67) in 484 at-bats.

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Moustakas has never matched that promise in the big leagues, including being demoted to Triple-A last May because he was struggling so badly. Who knows if this is the start of a sustained turnaround, but for now, the Royals are more than happy with what they are getting. 

To get back in the series, the Orioles turn to Bud Norris. He was terrific against Detroit in Game 3 of the ALDS, throwing 6.2 shutout innings. Manager Buck Showalter is correct to show trust in his right-hander, as Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs notes Norris gets better when the pressure is on:

The Royals are going to rookie Yordano Ventura in this spot. Like Norris, the rookie was also masterful in the ALDS with seven innings of one-run ball against Los Angeles. His erratic command shouldn't be a huge problem because the Orioles had the fifth-fewest walks in 2014. 

This just proves how the numbers make it so difficult to predict this series. These two teams are so evenly matched that these games should be as tense and close as Game 1. The Orioles need to win this game to salvage a split before heading to Kansas City. Don't underestimate a desperate team in a must-win spot. 

Orioles win, 3-1.

San Francisco vs. St. Louis Preview

One reason the Giants have been so successful this postseason is because they know exactly what their best player, Buster Posey, is going to do. Superstars lead franchises to titles, but they have to perform on the biggest stage in order for that to happen. 

Posey has been virtually impossible to pitch around in the playoffs, as this heat map from ESPN's Mark Simon illustrates:

The Giants lineup, which produced a total of nine runs in the NLDS, has the task of going against Wainwright. Normally, that would be daunting, but the right-hander has to erase the memory of a horrible outing against the Dodgers and alleviate concerns about his arm. 

Not surprisingly, Wainwright is defiant whenever the subject of his elbow comes up. Here's what he told Adam McCalvy of MLB.com:

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Here is the positive, I can be very honest about this, because I've been through it. When I took a game off after my Tampa start [in June], I aggravated my elbow, and it's the backside of my elbow. So the elbow-fearing world can know it's not my ligament. ... And after that, it goes on the mend and gets better and better progressively.

The other day, I aggravated that same spot on the backside of my elbow, and now I'm on the mend, and I can feel something. I'm very confident about it, because I felt that before, the exact same thing. I was able to recover very well from it. I have no doubts going into [Game 1].

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Try as he might to put on a brave face, Wainwright's words won't mean anything until we see him go out and pitch up to his lofty standards. 

The Cardinals can't afford another bad playoff start from their horse because scoring against Bumgarner doesn't figure to be easy. Before he made an error in Game 3 against Washington, the left-hander had a playoff streak of 22 scoreless innings, per ESPN Stats & Info:

In addition to that factoid, Bumgarner has been virtually unhittable on the road in October, per MLB Stat of the Day:

Small sample-size caveats aside, Bumgarner has already established himself as one of the best pitchers in baseball. He pitched a shutout against Pittsburgh in the NL Wild Card Game and was on that path against the Nationals before an errant throw to third base. 

Even though the Cardinals brought the power in the NLDS, Bumgarner is operating on another level in October. The Giants will steal Game 1 of the NLCS. 

Giants win, 4-2.

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