The regular season has now been wrapped up, and the new season begins. The playoffs that is!

The Dodgers finished with 106 wins and their reward for that? The St. Louis Cardinals, who are coming off a recent 17-game winning streak, in a Wild Card game.

Before the season I predicted the Dodgers to win 107 games, and falling one game short is not too bad of a guess I suppose. During the shortened season, I was two games off. Hopefully, next year I’ll hit it right on the mark.

Coming into this Wild Card game as a fan, I don’t really feel nervous. The Dodger fan in me says we got this, but all that can change with the first pitch. As we all know, the Dodgers will be without Max Muncy, as he exited the season finale against the Brewers after a collision at first base.

Both teams Wednesday night will have stellar pitching, as the Dodgers will go with Cy Young candidate Max Scherzer, while the Cardinals will counter with veteran Adam Wainwright, both of whom had great years.

Scherzer was 14-4 in the regular season with a 2.46 ERA. Throughout the postseason in his career, Scherzer carries a 3.338 ERA in 112 innings. Wainwright in the regular season campaign went 17-7 with a 3,05 ERA. In his postseason career, Wainwright has posted a 2.89 ERA in 109 innings.

Personally, I believe if there is one person who will keep the Cardinals in the game, it will be Wainwright, although facing Scherzer will be no easy task.

As well, the story for the Dodgers for the majority part of the season was overcoming injuries, and it seems like they will have to do it again for the postseason.

They will at least be without Clayton Kershaw and Muncy for this game, and possibly later on in the postseason if they advance. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told the media that it seems like Muncy will be out for the wild card and division series at if the Dodgers advance that far, while Kershaw himself said it was not looking good for him to pitch in this postseason.

Ultimately the season can very well end tomorrow night for the Dodgers, which would be of course in shocking fashion. But for a team who won 106 games, it is quite insane to be playing in a one-game playoff. There have been rumors of MLB looking at this format in the offseason. If the Dodgers make it all the way through the NLCS, they would not have home-field advantage against any N.L opponents due to them being a wildcard, even though they had the second-best record in the league.

However, back to tomorrow, I think the Dodgers pull this off, but it won’t be easy. This team is too good, and we’ve seen it winning 106 games. The Cardinals got hot at the right time, but I just think the Dodgers are the better team. However, I’m not looking forward to the return of Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt to Dodger Stadium.

If you are curious, the Dodgers won the season series against the Cardinals 4-3. The two teams bet in September in St. Louis where they split a four-game series. However, you can throw all that out the window as it won’t matter tomorrow.

My prediction for tomorrow is that both Wainwright and Scherzer have good starts and the Dodgers pull it off late. I’d say the final score is 4-2. If the Dodgers take care of business tomorrow, an all-time series stands in the way against none other than the Giants.

The first pitch for Wednesday is scheduled at 5:10 p.m.Pacific