2019 ALCS Game 3: Astros vs. Yankees, and 2019 NLCS Game 4: Cardinals vs. Nationals

The Nationals have dominated the Cardinals so thoroughly in the first three games of the NLCS that the only two runs St. Louis have scored have both come on fielding mishaps (one of those runs wound up as earned, the other wasn’t).

If Washington wraps things up with a win tonight, I’d say Howie Kendrick is your series MVP. He enters tonight’s game 5-for-12 with four doubles. Sure, both Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer had great pitching performances, but Kendrick’s offense jump-started the Nats several times in the series.

As you surely know, only one best-of-seven series in MLB history was won by a team down three games to none, the Red Sox over the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. I’m pretty sure this year’s Cardinals aren’t going to repeat that feat.

Meanwhile, speaking of the Yankees, they’ll have another tough pitcher to face in Game 3 of the ALCS, though this time they’ll be doing it at Yankee Stadium, where they went 57-24 during the 2019 regular season. The Astros lost both of the road games they played in their division series against the Rays, and lost three of four in New York in June.

Since September 1, Gerrit Cole has an 0.94 ERA and 0.624 WHIP in 57⅔ innings combined between regular season and postseason, with 10 walks and 99 (!) strikeouts.

Here’s all the info you’ll need for today’s LCS games.

Game time for ALCS Game 3: 3 p.m. CT. TV: FS1. Announcers: Joe Buck, John Smoltz. Ken Rosenthal and Tom Verducci. Series tied 1-1.

Game time for NLCS Game 4: 7 p.m. CT. TV: TBS. Announcers: Brian Anderson, Ron Darling and Jeff Francoeur with reporter Lauren Shehadi. Nationals lead series 3-0.

Pitching matchups:

Gerrit Cole (Astros) vs. Luis Severino (Yankees)

Dakota Hudson (Cardinals) vs. Patrick Corbin (Nationals)

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday for Astros/Yankees

MLB.com Gameday for Cardinals/Nationals

Baseball-reference.com game preview for Astros/Yankees

Baseball-reference.com game preview for Cardinals/Nationals

Please visit our SB Nation Cardinals site Viva El Birdos, Nationals site Federal Baseball, Astros site The Crawfish Boxes and Yankees site Pinstripe Alley. If you do go there to interact with Cardinals, Nationals, Astros or Yankees fans, please be respectful, abide by their individual site rules and serve as a good representation of Cub fans in general and BCB in particular.

This is the only thread for today’s games. Enjoy, and discuss amongst yourselves.