Dodgers vs. Pirates, Early Look

Well the Pirates season opener is now only 3 days away, and I am excited. I haven't been posting much lately, but I'm getting ready to get back into the full swing of posting every day. Let's start today with a little series look-in for the Dodgers vs. the Pirates.

The Pirates open up their season at home for the first time since 2005 when they lost both of their first two home games to the Brewers by the scores of 9-2 and 10-2. Oliver Perez and Kip Wells pitched those games for the Pirates. The roster looks just a little bit different now though...

Here's the pitching matchups:

Game 1:
Vincent Padilla (2009: 12-6, 4.46) vs. Zach Duke (2009: 11-16, 4.06)

Game 2:
Clayton Kershaw (2009: 8-8, 2.79) vs. Ross Ohlendorf (2009: 11-10, 3.92)

Game 3:
Chad Billingsley (2009: 12-11, 4.03) vs. Paul Maholm (2009: 8-9, 4.44)

Game 1 is probably the only game that will be played on Sunday or Monday that features two starting pitchers who both had ERA's over 4.00 last year. The second game has a much more interesting pitching matchup with Clayton Kershaw on the hill against Ross Ohlendorf. Kershaw was one of the best pitchers in the National League last year, despite a lot of inefficiency. He could develop into a Cy Young pitcher soon, let's just hope he isn't on his game Wednesday.

Let's compare the probable lineups, in positional order:

C: Russell Martin - Ryan Doumit
1B: James Loney - Jeff Clement
2B: Blake DeWitt - Akinori Iwamura
SS: Rafael Furcal - Ronny Cedeno
3B: Casey Blake - Andy LaRoche
LF: Manny Ramirez - Lastings Milledge
CF: Matt Kemp - Andrew McCutchen
RF: Andre Ethier - Garrett Jones


Advantage: Dodgers.

There's no doubt that this a David and Goliath series. The Dodgers are a World Series Contender and the Pirates are going to struggle to win 75 games. However, it's still baseball and anybody can beat anybody. If I had to make a prediction, I'd say the Pirates beat Padilla Monday and give the crowd a good show, but then lose the next two games and head off to Arizona as a 1-2 ballclub.