October 02, 2008 | By: Dayne Myers | Posted in: CEO Posts, Company News, Diamond Mind, Industry News, MLB Playoffs, SIM Analysis, SIM Stats, Tips

Cubs' Zambrano Huge Factor in Game 2, But LA's Game 1 Win Increases NLCS Chances to 74%

Another coin toss! Like yesterday's Angels-Bosox game, this one is extremely close - the Dodgers won 502 of the 1,000 runs of The Sim, with the Dodgers averaging 4.8 runs to 4.6 runs for the Cubbies (making this the second-closest sim we've ever done!) That indicates we might see a high-scoring shoot-out and a good chance that one team will score a big win. In game one, The Sim correctly projected that walks would be the key to a Dodger win, with the game possibly broken open by a big hit or a Cub bullpen collapse. Sure enough, all of that happened - Dempster loaded the bases with walks, and Loney delivered the big hit, a grand salami... and then the Chicago bullpen let the Dodgers pull away.

Keys to the Game: But this game looks to be a total toss-up, with the Cubs bullpen likely to play a critical role again. The Sim sees a decent but not dominating performance from Chicago starter Carlos Zambrano, with a fair number of times of him getting hit hard, and the bullpen struggles again. This time, however, Cub pitchers project to have better control. The Sim sees Dodger starter Chad Billingsley also having a solid outing but also with a chance of having his own troubles. Perhaps more importantly, the Dodger pen shows a high probability of struggling in this game. Given all that, we might see a lot of late scoring.

The Sim projects that Manny Ramirez might be more of a critical factor in this game than in game one, when he went 2 for 4, including a home run and a wa carloszambranolosestobrewers42307_425 lk. If the Cubs can keep Manny in check, and Zambrano has been able to do that in the past logo_la_79x76_79 - Manny is 0 for 3 with 2 K's against Zambrano (though that is certainly a small sample size), that would be huge. For the Cubs, The Sim shows Kosuke Fukudome and Jim Edmonds as most likely to have a big game, followed by Mark DeRosa, who had a two-run shot in game one. And The Sim also shows a surprisingly high possibility of a Cub pitcher having an impact... and we know that Big Z can swing a mean bat!

logo_chc_79x76_79 Intangibles: While our Diamond Mind simulation does include the impact of park factors and attempts to factor in home field advantage, human emotion is a very difficult thing to simulate. The Cubs NEED game two, and the Chicago fans provide a big lift, of course. Given that The Sim shows the tiniest edge to the Dodgers, emotion just might swing that to the Cubs.

By the way, we predicted the Dodgers to win this series with the caveat that they needed game one. Having done that, The Sim now shows the chances of L.A. moving on to the NLCS increased from 52.9% to 74.1%.