Seattle/New Orleans Preview

[aaronweiner]

Overview:

Only one question needs be answered in this series: can anyone stop the New Orleans Crawdads from repeating? We're thinking that the Seattle Storm has a real chance. Seattle absolutely undressed Marquette in Round 1 the way they did all year; despite my dutiful effort to pick an upset, I chose the wrong series (that series was Baltimore/Omaha). Seattle pounded the living crap out of the Suns pitching in the Doubleday, pouring on 39 runs in seven games and an average margin of three and a half runs in the five game set. So you'd think that if anyone has a shot to beat the best pitching staff in the Frick, it would be the Storm. Plus, New Orleans didn't exactly set the world on fire beating Montreal in six games, outscoring the Blazers by just three runs in six games. Is New Orleans' lackluster performance in the last round a sign of weakness or just two titans clashing? Can Seattle take advantage of hot bats to knock off the reigning champs? Let's look closer.


Pitching:

New Orleans' pitching staff was fantastic this season and was very good against Montreal in the Doubleday. But, if there's one team that gave Jimmy McCabe trouble this year, it was Seattle. Late in the season, McCabe had his only start against the Storm, allowing a pathetic six runs in six innings (while getting his 24th win anyway). The highest ERA McCabe had against any other Frick team was 4.09 this season. Jose Linares was also disastrous against Seattle in his one start against them. It's one start, so it's hard to make too much of it, but it could make things interesting in this series. The New Orleans bullpen, of course, was nails against Seattle, like everyone ever. Also, if we look past the 11-run shellacking the Crawdads took in Game 5 of the Doubleday, they allowed just fifteen runs in the other five games (and just 26 in 6 games - not bad either!).

As for Seattle, their pitching staff was third in the Frick this year, but like everyone else a whole run worse than the Crawdads'. Their staff was mediocre against New Orleans this year, without too many ups and downs, which is interesting: it basically means the staff can go either way. Seattle's pitching staff was the reverse of what you'd expect from a top staff: the rotation was fairly shoddy while the pen was outstanding - though not nearly so outstanding as the Crawdads' pen this year.


Hitting:

A lot of the Seattle/New Orleans games this year have ended up as slugfests, and while you'd think that helps the Storm, the teams were first and second in offense this year, both averaging almost six runs a game, and it was pretty darn close. Honestly, it's so close in just about every way that it's almost worthless trying to compare them.

Because the teams were pretty darn good against one another this season with the bats, it does seem to neutralize New Orleans' biggest advantage. Seattle wasn't (notably) QUITE as good offensively against New Orleans but we're splitting hairs. One notable thing: New Orleans' Al Jones was absolutely outrageous against the Storm this year, hitting .500 with a 1.115 SLG against Seattle this year.


Overall:

Seattle should be considered the underdog in this series, but we can happily recommend watching this one - it should be a really good one. I'm going to go ahead and pick the Crawdads in seven games, but, really, this could go any which way. We could see huge offensive outbursts by both sides, we could see shutdown pitching. We could see both of those things in one game. We could see huge turnarounds if one side or another gets to each other's pen.

New Orleans' starting rotation gives them the advantage in this series but it should be awfully darn fun to watch.


Projection for the FL Cartwright Cup: New Orleans in 7

[Edward Murphy]

going with Crawdads.

[njherdfan]

going with Crawdads.

Me too

[njherdfan]

I'm just hoping my platoon guys can work their magic against the lefties they'll be facing.