I’ve been playing monday morning quarterback with the World Series so far, time to say my piece up front. I like the Giants in game 3. I always said that throwing Jason Schmidt and Russ Ortiz back to back was a mistake as they are very similar pitchers – righties that throw hard and sometimes struggle with their control. If anything, I’d have gone with Ortiz first because Schmidt throws harder. By the end of game 2, the Angels had seen a steady diet of hard throwing righties: Schmidt, Rodriguez, Worrell, Nen, Ortiz, Rodrigues again – uh-oh – 2 run game winning home run. It was clear early in game 2 that the Angels were locked in on Ortiz. Watching the Angels rip fastball after fastball… somebody get in there and change the eye angle if not the speed.

I thought that the Giants rotation of Schmidt, Ortiz, Livan Hernandez and Kirk Reuter had the benefit of having 2 hard throwers and 2 off-speed pitchers, however pairing them as he did, Dusty has removed some of that advantage.

I think Livan will be very effective in game 3. I think he’ll keep the ball in the park partly due to PacBell being a pitcher’s park, but mostly because he’ll keep the hitters off-balance better.

The Angels will be at a disadvantage without their DH, but they’ll still have much better hitters coming off the bench. Who starts in center for the Giants? I guess it should be Lofton, but then why did we have to suffer through his defense in games 1 & 2?

Ramon Ortiz can be very good, but I’m going with the Giants, 6-4.