This postseason has been dominated by pitching, so who has the arms advantage in the World Series?

During the regular season the Red Sox ranked sixth among AL teams in runs allowed and the Cardinals ranked fifth among NL teams in runs allowed, but overall totals can be misleading when it comes to evaluating the quality of a playoff pitching staff because lesser pitchers rarely make an appearance.

For instance, through 11 playoff games for the Cardinals and 10 playoff games for the Red Sox both teams have used four starting pitchers. That in itself is obviously a big change from the regular season and in the Red Sox’s case they’ve significantly shortened the bullpen pecking order too, essentially going with a four-man relief corps in anything resembling a high-leverage situation.

And that’s where the strength of these two teams really shines through: They don’t have any real, “oh no, this guy is coming into the game?!” weak links once the pitching staff is shortened. Rotation orders haven’t been announced yet, but here’s how the starters compare:

Cardinals:

Adam Wainwright: 242 IP, 2.94 ERA, 2.80 xFIP

Michael Wacha: 65 IP, 2.78 ERA, 3.36 xFIP

Joe Kelly: 124 IP, 2.69 ERA, 4.19 xFIP

Lance Lynn: 202 IP, 3.97 ERA, 3.66 xFIP

Red Sox:

Jon Lester: 213 IP, 3.75 ERA, 3.90 xFIP

Clay Buchholz: 108 IP, 1.74 ERA, 3.41 xFIP

John Lackey: 189 IP, 3.52 ERA, 3.49 xFIP

Jake Peavy: 145 IP, 4.17 ERA, 4.03 xFIP

(xFIP stands for Expected Fielding Independent Pitching, about which you can learn more by clicking here.)

Adam Wainwright is the best starting pitcher in this series and based on how he’s pitched so far in his brief MLB career Michael Wacha has made a strong case for second-best, but Jon Lester also has a lengthy track record of very good work and Clay Buchholz had a 1.74 ERA in the regular season.

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Every starter who’ll take the mound in this series is at worst a solid mid-rotation guy and the Cardinals have so much starter depth that they aren’t even going to use stud rookie Shelby Miller. I’d give St. Louis a slight rotation edge based on the Wainwright-Wacha one-two punch, but in the (likely) three-four spots I actually trust Boston’s Lackey-Peavy duo a bit more than Kelly-Lynn.

Which brings us to the bullpens …

Cardinals:

Trevor Rosenthal: 75 IP, 2.63 ERA, 2.34 xFIP

Carlos Martinez: 28 IP, 5.08 ERA, 3.83 xFIP

John Axford: 65 IP, 4.02 ERA, 3.56 xFIP

Seth Maness: 62 IP, 2.32 ERA, 3.13 xFIP

Kevin Siegrist: 40 IP, 0.45 ERA, 3.00 xFIP

Randy Choate: 35 IP, 2.29 ERA, 3.30 xFIP

Red Sox:

Koji Uehara: 74 IP, 1.09 ERA, 2.08 xFIP

Junichi Tazawa: 68 IP, 3.16 ERA, 3.03 xFIP

Brandon Workman: 42 IP, 4.97 ERA, 3.18 xFIP

Craig Breslow: 60 IP, 1.81 ERA, 4.37 xFIP

Koji Uehara has basically been as dominant as a pitcher can possibly be, in the regular season and the postseason, but the Cardinals also have a stud closer in Trevor Rosenthal. And while the Red Sox may struggle to get consistently strong work bridging the gap to Uehara the Cardinals have no shortage of quality setup options from the right side and left side. I’d trust Uehara over anyone right now, but I’d trust Rosenthal and his assortment of setup men over Uehara, Junichi Tazawa, and whatever Red Sox manager John Farrell can piece together in the middle innings.

None of which is to say the Red Sox’s bullpen is a huge weakness or anything. It’s not, but if we’re splitting hairs here trying to find potential advantages in this series I think the Cardinals’ bullpen depth could play a big role. They have 5-6 good options, including a lefty specialist in Randy Choate who’ll no doubt be matched up against David Ortiz in some big-time situations.

So which team has the World Series pitching edge? I’d go with the Cardinals, however slightly, based on the strength of Wainwright-Wacha and bullpen depth. And of course me writing this post about all the good pitching in this series means we’re probably looking at a bunch of 9-7 and 10-8 slugfests.

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