San Francisco Giants at Florida Marlins, 4 PM ET (Game 3)

I think Alou took Ponson out a bit early in game 2. The bullpen couldn't do the job and the scene now shifts to Florida The Marlins will face a left for the first and only time in this series, which they must take advantage of. With righthanders Jerome Williams and the seemingly invincible Jason Schmidt to pitch games 4 and 5, this game is more important for Florida than for San Francisco.

Lefthanders hit the ball hard off Redman when they make contact. Even though his strikeout rate is much greater versus lefthanded hitters that righthanders, the former have been a little more successful overall. Bonds will get 3 walks in 5 plate appearances.

notes: OBP is calculated without including sac flies (H+W+HBP)/(AB+W+HBP); player in red indicates the batter is at a platoon disadvantage.

With 7 righties and a lefty with a reverse platoon split, the Giants should score some runs today. I had to double check Marquis Grissom's numbers because I could hardly believe them.

Have you guys seen that Proline commercial with the muscle relaxant? Kirk Rueter is like Tom Glavine on that stuff. He'll pitch around both righties and lefties more often than Glavine and he'll let you put the ball in play all day. You can't steal off him, so your best hope is for your righthanded batters to drive in the walks with extra base hits. I don't know if he'd be nearly as effective in a hitter's park, but he won't have to worry about that in this series. It's unusual to see a good lefthanded starter with such a huge left-righty split.

notes: OBP is calculated without including sac flies (H+W+HBP)/(AB+W+HBP); player in red indicates the batter is at a platoon disadvantage.

On paper, the Giants starters match up extremely well against Florida. We've established that the Marlins are weak against righthanded pitchers. Today, they are going to have a hard time running because of Rueter. The silver lining is that Rueter doesn't strike a lot of guys out, so you may see a bunch of hit and run attempts by the Fish.