Anthony Gargano’s Opening Diatribe- Confident in a Phillies Win
How are you feeling about the Phillies heading into this weekend’s Series in St Louis? Because Anthony is very confident about the Phillies’ chances. He opened the show breaking down…
WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 02: Zack Wheeler #45 of the Philadelphia Phillies pitches in the third inning against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on October 02, 2022 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)How are you feeling about the Phillies heading into this weekend's Series in St Louis? Because Anthony is very confident about the Phillies' chances. He opened the show breaking down why he likes the Phillies to beat the Cardinals.
If you missed it, here is what he said in his opening Diatribe earlier today…
“Here's the deal. There is a reason we feel confident going into this series. I know it's best of 3, and all the games are in St Louis. However, I steer you to the pitching matchups. The Cardinals remain undecided. There is a lot of talk that the Cardinals want to look at where Adam Wainwright is right now. He had some bad arm issues toward the end of the year. I think they want to go with a veteran like him. But they are unsure of how effective he can be.
They have a bunch of guys they can choose from. There are no top-end rotation guys. There’s Quintana, Flaherty, who is a promising young right-hander, but he did not have a good year, and Jordan Montgomery. So it is going to be two of those 4 in the first two games.
But here's the beauty of why we should all feel confident going into this thing. Wheeler and Nola. When you think about Zack Wheeler, he is really difficult on right-handers. What do we know about the Cardinals? The middle of that lineup is all right-handed power. That is where Wheeler is really hard. He throws hard. His ball is heavy. And he is really tough on right-handed hitters.
Just look at his last 3 starts against St Louis. He allowed 1 run in those 3 starts. His WHIP is 0.68. He faced them twice in 10 days in July. Both times he pitched 7 shutout innings.
One of the things about this weird setup, where it is the best of 3, is you jump on a team on Friday, and all of a sudden the bats start to squeeze. And then you have Nola. That's the importance of game 1 in a best of 3. And you have a good healthy matchup.
If the Phils can break through early, I think Wheeler will shut them down. They get frustrated. And I think you come away with a good chance of stealing game 1. If you steal game 1, you have a good chance of winning the series.”
