It’s the National League Championship Series! And so here’s Nicholas Beaudrot of Donkeylicious for your analytical guest-hostery. Thread: it’s open! Pennant fever: catch it!

What’s a Braves fan to do? The Dodgers are a hated rival from the past; the Phillies, from the present. I hear the Falcons and Hawks are good; maybe I should start watching other sports? Naaah.

The big factor in this series is the Phillies’ weakness against left handed pitching. The heart of their order–Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Raul Ibanez–is 100% left-handed. That putts them at a disadvantage against Game 1 starter Randy Wolf and likely Game 2 starter Clayton Kershaw. In Howard’s case, his long-term platoon split is huge; Scott Lemieux points out that he hits like Lou Gehrig against righties, but Willie Bloomquist against lefties, something that Joe Torre certainly knows. Thankfully for Philly, Jayson Werth has emerged as a credible middle-of-the-lineup hitter, which will at least force Torre to consider burning through his bullpen to get the matchups he wants.

There’s not a lot more I have to say about the Dodgers; their postseason’s going to be determined by (a) Chad Billingsley’s health, and (b) whether they’re a good-hitting team with great pitching or a mediocre-hitting team with great pitching. I like the pitching matchup for L.A. tonight, but their fly ball pitching staff is going to have a tough time on the road. So, Phils in either 5 or 6, depending on whether or not they can take Game 2.

Your soundtrack for today’s game is Philly’s Most Wanted “Please Don’t Mind”. No luck finding a live recording or actual video (sidenote: YouTube really needs an “exclude results that appear to be obvious rips of songs — i.e. have a framerate below 1 FPS” filter), so you get this rip instead. [Ed. note: This is pretty ignorant for a baseball thread, so if you're still at work, think twice unless you've got some headphones.]