If there was any greater advantage than heading home after the first two games of the National League Division Series, it would be heading home to AT&T Park.
After dropping the ball in the first two games of the series, the San Francisco Giants will finally have a few advantages beyond sending one of the most dominant postseason pitchers of the modern era, Madison Bumgarner, to the mound for Game Three.
The Chicago Cubs, in turn, will be starting one of their five highly-successful starters as well, Jake Arrieta.
Although it may seem like a stretch considering he is last year’s Cy Young winner and a tough match-up, to say the least, Arrieta could actually be an additional advantage for the Giants in this make-or-break game.
There are many statistical aspects that support the opposite, like his 4-2 record or 1.82 lifetime earned run average against San Francisco, including two match-ups this season in which he pitched seven innings of one-run ball and six innings of two-run ball (2.08 ERA, 14 K, 4 BB).
Individually, Arrieta has also pitched most of San Francisco’s lineup well. Six players, including Brandon Belt (0-for-10, 7 SO), Buster Posey (1-for-15), Hunter Pence (3-for-13), and Brandon Crawford (1-for-13, 6 SO) bat under .232 against him.
If his success was garnered purely by those specific match-ups, he would already set for success. However, there are also circumstances that are playing against him.
Pitching within the walls of AT&T Park might be an advantage for both starters in terms of run prevention but it does pose a slightly bigger challenge for the power-hitting Cubs over a Giants team that has largely made their success off of small ball.
Circumstantially, Arrieta’s splits also play against him. He generally pitches a full point worse over his career away (3.59 ERA away, 2.62 at home) and nearly the same between day and night games (2.62 day, 3.66 night) which could play some factor in a game that starts at 9:30 PM ET.
Of course, not everything can be isolated into split-based statistics but both past experience and recent results could also be factors as well.
Last year in the postseason, Arrieta pitched a brilliant game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Wild Card Game One, throwing a complete-game, 11-strikeout shutout. But he also followed with two starts in which he gave up four earned runs each, going less than six innings in each outing.
His recent starts have looked more similar to the latter two, as he’s collected a 5.30 ERA in his last six starts, including the very last regular season game against the Pirates, in which he gave up seven earned runs in only five innings.
Arrieta will also be running on odd rest, as he hasn’t pitched a major league inning in nearly two weeks – although that may play to his advantage as on six or more days of rest his ERA is 2.45.
Bumgarner will have some disadvantages of his own, like facing a power-hungry Cubs lineup complete with a possible NL MVP, veteran bats, and a bevy of young talent near the top of their positions, but for the time being, he seems to have the upper hand.
Fifteen games of postseason experience (1.94 ERA), almost no difference in day/night splits (2.98 day, 2.99 night), a solid ERA on four days of rest (2.94), an even better home ERA (2.74), and one of the best pitching bats in the game all speak on his behalf.
Jonathan Powell is the Managing Editor of Outside Pitch MLB and the Milwaukee Brewers writer. Follow him on Twitter @jonathannashhh.
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