Los Angeles Dodgers revealed their 26 man squad for Wednesday’s National League wild card match up against St. Louis Cardinals. Max Muncy and Kershaw both left out of the squad due to injuries.
Max Scherzer is on the mound for Dodgers in a win or go home game, Scherzer will be pitching on six days’ rest and is coming off the two outlier games of his two months as a Dodger.
He allowed a combined 10 earned runs and 17 hits to the Rockies on Sept. 23 and Padres on Sept. 29. In his previous nine starts as a Dodger, he allowed five earned runs (0.78 ERA) and 31 hits.
“I think you draw on all your postseason experiences, especially in elimination games as well,” Scherzer said. “It’s one game. You win or go home, and every pitch — you’re always on pins and needles in those situations, and you’ve just got to be calm, cool and collected and go out there and execute and go out there and just pitch your best and pitch your game.”
“I kind of got a little out of whack with how I was delivering the baseball. First off, let me give credit to both the Rockies and the Padres. They both had great ABs against me,” Scherzer said. “I wasn’t fooling (the Padres) anymore. They knew everything I was going to throw. I still think there were things I was doing; I wasn’t getting the ball to the locations I needed to. I wasn’t locating with all my pitches.”
For St. Louis Cardinals and their own longtime ace Adam Wainwright will take the mound. This will be his 16th career postseason start.
“We’ve been a part of a couple Wild Card games, and it is a harsh atmosphere out there,” Wainwright said. “You know, there’s a lot on the line. Winner-take-all games are just as — I mean — it’s as fun as it gets, right?”
