In a battle of two of baseball’s most recently successful franchises, the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals will face off in the 2014 National League Championship Series. The Giants have won it all in each of the last two even-year seasons (2010, 2012), while the Cardinals have appeared in the NLCS in four consecutive years (winning it in the odd years).

If the ALCS between the Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Royals is a battle of new blood, this San Francisco-St. Louis battle is between two blue bloods.

These two teams are very familiar with each other. They faced off seven times in six days that spanned May and June during the regular season (the Giants won four of them) and were opponents in the 2012 NLCS.

San Francisco beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL Wild Card game just to get to the divisional round, but St. Louis bested them by just two wins over the course of the season. Statistically, the teams were about as close as you can get.

The Giants hit more home runs (132 to 105), but the Cardinals may have finally woken up offensively during the NLDS. St. Louis clubbed seven home runs in four games against the Los Angeles Dodgers. San Francisco also had the edge in OPS (.699 to .689), but St. Louis was better at getting on base (.320 to .311). The Giants scored 4.1 runs per game against 3.8 for the Cardinals.

In the limited sample size of this postseason, the Cardinals have been a much bigger offensive force. They’ve scored one more run in one fewer game (actually two fewer if you count the 18-inning battle the Giants had with the Washington Nationals) and had a far superior OPS (.746 to .507). Maybe the offense will continue to click as it has in October, as Mike Matheny preached all season long, but it’s more likely that both offenses will look more like they did all year long.

The pitching should be very good in this series with more experienced arms than we will see in the ALCS. The Giants and Cardinals both finished with 3.50 ERAs during the 162-game slate and were nearly identical in terms of batting average against (.241 for San Francisco, .242 for St. Louis) quality starts (91 to 86 in favor of the Cardinals) and strikeouts per nine innings (7.59 to 7.52, also in favor of the Cardinals).

San Francisco has enjoyed tremendous work from their staff in the postseason -- a 1.33 ERA, 49 strikeouts, just 13 walks and .157 BAA in 54 innings. St. Louis hasn’t pitched quite as well (3.86 ERA, 3.0 K/BB ratio and .285 BAA in 35 innings), but the sample size is small (once again).

It sounds incredibly cliché, but this series will be won by the club that gets the timely hit, the big shutdown outing from a starter and a key out from a reliever. The stage won’t be too bright for either team, they’ll both be well managed (edge to Bruce Bochy) and they matchup very evenly. It wouldn’t surprise anyone to see either team advance and go on to win the World Series, but only one of them can.

The Cardinals haven’t missed a beat after trading Allen Craig, who occupied the middle of their lineup, and the added depth of John Lackey in the rotation has built them for postseason success. However, there is too much uncertainly surrounding Adam Wainwright’s health and Madison Bumgarner (and to a lesser extent Tim Hudson and Jake Peavy) has looked too good lately for the Giants not to win.

Prediction: Giants in 6