Winners of the National League West, the Giants have secured home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and have avoided having to play in a one-and-done NL Wild Card game against the red-hot St. Louis Cardinals.
The Los Angeles Dodgers don't have those luxuries.
The Dodgers are sending three-time Cy Young award winner Max Scherzer to the mound to face off against Cardinals' righty Adam Wainwright on Wednesday night.
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With Scherzer unavailable for any potential weekend games against the Giants, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts announced Tuesday afternoon that Walker Buehler and Julio Urias would pitch Games 1 and 2 of the possible NLDS matchup.
Giants manager Gabe Kapler has yet to announce starters for any of the NLDS games, but if the Dodgers were to beat the Cardinals and advance, Buehler, one of the Dodgers' multiple aces on the staff, would square off against a Giants team who last scored six runs in three innings against him on Sept. 5.
Urias, who is the only 20-game winner in MLB this season, has surrendered two runs or fewer in all but one of his five total starts against the Giants this season. The outlier was a May 29 start where the Giants scored six runs on 11 hits against him.
The biggest storyline surrounding the Dodgers this postseason has been the elbow injuries to both starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw and first baseman Max Muncy. Kershaw is expected to miss the entire postseason, while Muncy still has a chance to return.
If the Dodgers are to advance to the NLDS -- and that's a big "if" because of how hot the Cardinals have been -- it's shaping up to be a fantastic series against two heated rivals.
