Madison Bumgarner is steamrolling the Cardinals in Game 1 of the NLCS, and perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised by this. Bumgarner is one of the game's best starting pitchers, sure, but he's also one of the most difficult southpaws for left-handed batters to face, and the Cardinals started four lefties against the Giants tonight.
Among those four left-handers are Matt Carpenter, Jon Jay, and Kolten Wong, each of whom have been reasonably productive against southpaws throughout their career. As high-contact/line-drive types, they are less prone to platoon problems, and each offer enough defensive value to earn their spot in the lineup, even if they shouldn't be expected to do much against Bumgarner and his low arm-slot.
Matt Adams, however, has one of the largest platoon splits of any hitter in baseball, and he's been close to an automatic out against lefties as a big leaguer; his career line against them is just .197/.227/.326, which translates to a 51 wRC+. To put that in perspective, Rey Ordonez -- the defensive wizard who was one of the worst hitters of baseball's modern era -- had a career wRC+ of 54. Would you bat Rey Ordonez fifth in a playoff game?
And that's Adams line against all left-handers, not extra dominant lefties throwing nearly sidearm, as Bumgarner does. While it's easy to point to Adams' remarkable home run off Clayton Kershaw in the NLDS, letting him face southpaws rarely works out for the Cardinals, and Bumgarner is reminding them of that in Game 1. St. Louis is a very good organization, but they might be regretting their inability to find a right-handed first base partner for Adams. Against pitchers like Madison Bumgarner, you need to a better option.
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