Bulls v Redbirds Matchup

The St Louis Cardinals AAA team, the Memphis Redbirds won the Pacific Coast League championship (story here). So they are going to show up for tomorrow's AAA championship game up in Moosic, Pennsylvania at the home field of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the place where the Bulls just won the International League Governors' Cup.

Just to establish a modest amount of credibility up front — the idea of a one-game "national championship" makes no sense at all. That said, if the Bulls win, I'll wear the T-shirt.

These numbers are the end-of-season stats for the Bulls and the Redbirds. The teams are pretty close, but the Memphis crew has a substantial edge in hitting, while the Bulls pitching looks pretty good.

But that's at the end of the season. Now both teams have two rounds of playoffs behind them and they both won their championship in hostile territory.

So intangibles will rule.

• Which starting pitcher will do best after the longest rest period either of them will have had all year? Same goes for the relievers. 
• Are any of the players looking for a call-up? The Cardinals are 4½ back in the NL wild card; the Rays are 5½ back. Maybe not.
• The Bulls have been hanging out in Scranton for several days; perhaps taking bp and working out every day. The Redbirds possibly went back to Memphis enroute to Moosic.
• Which manager will make the best calls and the best moments? 

For us, we all need to hope that the TV broadcast crew is better than the last time. For that game, they went off into off-topic story-telling and completely ignored events on the field. Have not heard if Patrick Kinas will be broadcasting on the radio. Hope so. If he does, that will be the place to find out how these teams match up.

By the way, back in 2009 the Bulls played this same team for the AAA National Championship.
And we wrote about it. The Bulls won. In the 11th inning. Check out the box score for a trip down memory lane. Elliot Johnson, Justin Ruggiano, Ray Olmedo, Joe Dillon, Desmond Jennings, Jeremy Hellickson, Joe Bateman, Mitch Talbot. Quite a crew.