The Fall Classic began for the 113th time in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, as the Los Angeles Dodgers met the Houston Astros to start a best of seven series. Dallas Keuchel faced off against Dodger ace Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw, who has a bad reputation for often struggling in the post-season, silenced all of his critics with an absolute stellar performance last night.
Kershaw struck out 11 through seven innings only allowing three hits. This stat line hasn't been put up by a pitcher in the World Series since 1965, when former Dodger Sandy Koufax did it in game seven.
Keuchel was solid, but could not match Kershaw as he allowed three runs in six and two-thirds innings of work including a first pitch home run to Chris Taylor.
Keuchel also made another mistake that would end up costing his team the game. In the bottom of the 6th with one runner on base and two outs, Keuchel hung a breaking ball up in the zone, Justin Turner made him pay and sent it over the left field wall giving the Dodgers a 3-1 lead.
Who wins tonight?
Game two starts at 8:09 tonight and should be a good one. The Astros look to even the series up with their newly acquired ace, Justin Verlander. Lefty Rich Hill gets the ball for the Dodgers, who try to take a commanding 2-0 series lead.
Want to make some money tonight?
Take 50% of your savings account and put it on the Astros to win tonight. The Astros come into this one as the favorite as they face the 37-year old Hill. Hill is a solid pitcher but his age and throwing arm make him a big liability against the best offense in baseball tonight.
The Astros are amazing at hitting left handed pitching.
George Springer, Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, and Carlos Correa all bat right handed and feast on old, junk throwing lefties. Bregman especially as his quick, to the ball swing has helped him hit three home runs this post-season all off of notoriously un-hittable left handers (see Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw). Look for the Astros offense to get into the Dodgers bullpen early as I don't believe we will be seeing Rich Hill in this game for more than five innings.
Who wins the series
Astros in six. The best, most complete team in Major League Baseball is the Houston Astros. They do everything so well. They can beat you with pitching and they can beat you with hitting, the only thing that worries me about this team is the lack of a dominant bullpen. The Dodgers can win this series if they get into Houston's bullpen early and often, just like the Yankees did. Even if they do that however, they still have to beat Verlander and Keuchal at least one more time and that is going to be very hard to do.
