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NEW YORK -- Bright lights, big city, ol country hardball.Madison Bumgarner against Noah Syndergaard with the season on the line. A pair of towering tough guys you probably dont want to mess with.Playoff pitching matchups dont get much better.Toting his outstanding October resume to the mound, Bumgarner will start for the San Francisco Giants against Syndergaard and the New York Mets in the NL wild-card game Wednesday night.The winner moves on to face the major league-best Chicago Cubs (103-58) in a best-of-five Division Series. The loser heads home for the winter.Its going to be an exciting game, Giants manager Bruce Bochy said Tuesday, when both teams worked out at Citi Field. I mean, this is the fun thing about postseason is youre going to get great matchups like this.It took 162 games to set it up.San Francisco, the top team in the majors at the All-Star break, struggled badly throughout the second half before finishing with a four-game winning streak. That was enough to hold off St. Louis by one game and secure the last NL playoff spot on the final day of the regular season.New York, the defending NL champion, was two games under .500 on Aug. 19 after losing two straight in San Francisco. But with slugger Yoenis Cespedes and shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera back from the disabled list, the Mets posted the top mark in the majors (27-13) from that point on and jumped over four teams in the pennant race, booking their postseason trip Saturday with one game to spare.Both teams finished 87-75, and New York earned home-field advantage by winning the season series 4-3.Good major league players, when it comes crunch time, they turn it on, Mets manager Terry Collins said. So Im not really sure that momentum going in means a whole lot. Both of us have had to play good at the end -- we did.Citi Field should be rocking Wednesday night, but Bumgarner and the Giants know all about thriving in playoff pressure. The team is 8-0 under Bochy when facing postseason elimination, all since 2012. And after winning World Series titles in 2010, `12 and `14, the Giants want to extend their pattern of even-year championships with another run through October.The last time Bumgarner pitched in the postseason, he saved Game 7 of the 2014 World Series in Kansas City with five scoreless innings on two days rest to cap one of the greatest postseason performances in baseball history. His 0.25 ERA in five career outings is the lowest for any pitcher with at least 25 innings in the Fall Classic.He was 15-9 with a 2.74 ERA and 251 strikeouts this season.With us finishing up the way we did, I feel really, really good about our chances, Bumgarner said.The 6-foot-5, 250-pound lefty, born in Hickory, North Carolina, started San Franciscos playoff surge in the 2014 wild-card game by striking out 10 in a four-hit shutout at Pittsburgh -- a similar assignment to Wednesday.We have been through this before. Weve been down this road. I like this wild-card thing, Bochy said. I love it. I have to. We have a ring because of this wild card and have a chance now.The 24-year-old Syndergaard, with long blond locks and the nickname Thor, is no inexperienced sophomore.The 6-foot-6, 242-pound righty from Mansfield, Texas, joined Bumgarner on the All-Star roster this summer and went 14-9 with a 2.60 ERA and 218 strikeouts over 183 2/3 innings. Featuring a 100 mph fastball, sharp slider and impressive control of several secondary pitches, he won a pair of postseason starts as a rookie last year -- including Game 3 of the World Series against the Royals.He has the best stuff for a starter in all of baseball, Bumgarner said back in San Francisco.Last fall, Syndergaard caught everyones attention with his first World Series pitch: a sizzling fastball well above Alcides Escobars head that dusted a hot hitter who liked to swing at the initial offering.Hes not intimidated by anything, Collins said. Hes not afraid. He wants to take charge. His stuff speaks for itself. I think hes grown as a pitcher. I think he trusts his stuff a lot more now.Syndergaard, for his part, is eagerly anticipating Wednesday night.Its just a dream come true, he said. Its going to be really exciting and Im looking forward to getting out there and feeling the energy from the hometown crowd, just having an awesome time.---AP Baseball Writer Janie McCauley in San Francisco contributed to this report.Wholesale NHL Jerseys . World champions Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia won the gold medal with 237.71 points, Moore-Towers and Moscovitch followed at 208.45 and Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov of Russia were third at 187. NHL Jerseys China . Irving scored 23 points, Tristan Thompson had 20 points and 10 rebounds and the Cavaliers beat the Denver Nuggets 117-109 on Friday night. https://www.chinanhljerseys.us/ . The team also announced Tuesday that the Braves will wear a commemorative patch on the right sleeve during the season. The patch, shaped like home plate, carries the number 715, Aarons autograph and a "40th Anniversary" banner. Wholesale NHL Jerseys China . He was followed closely by David Clarkson, donning red, seconds later. Clarksons actions one night earlier, leaping off the bench in defence of Kessel during a pre-season game against the Buffalo Sabres, will cost him the first 10 games of the regular season. NHL Jerseys Outlet . 1 position. The Mustangs (6-0), who beat Queens 50-31 last weekend, earned 17 first-place votes and 287 points in voting by the Football Reporters of Canada. Western was last ranked first in the country in October 2011.The raw passing numbers of rookies Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys and Carson Wentz of the Philadelphia Eagles look fairly similar:Prescott: 68.7 completion percentage, 7 passing touchdowns, 1 interception, 103.9 passer ratingWentz: 63.8 completion percentage, 8 passing touchdowns, 3 interceptions, 92.7 passer ratingBut through the lens of Total QBR, a significant difference emerges. Prescott leads the league with an 82.9 QBR, while Wentz ranks 29th with a 49.9. Both quarterbacks have been good enough to win (the Cowboys are 5-1 heading into their Sunday night showdown against the 4-2 Eagles), so where do the differences in their performances lie?Context is keyTotal QBR is opponent-adjusted, so a?good performance against a bad defense is weighed as such. Wentzs numbers are hurt by the fact that hes faced the easiest set of QBR defenses in the league thus far.For example, in Week 1, Wentz had an unadjusted QBR of 66.1, which looks pretty good by itself, but if we take into account that it came at home, the opponent was the Cleveland Browns and that it was the second-lowest opponent QBR allowed by the Browns this season, it gets adjusted down to a 53.2 -- just about average. This isnt isolated to just the Browns game. Wentz has the lowest QBR allowed by the Lions and the Redskins as well. A look at the strength of Wentzs performances for each team Philadelphia has played:Prescott has also faced a fairly easy set of opponents (28th easiest of 31 qualified quarterbacks) but has exceeded what other quarterbacks have done against those defenses:Its worth noting that the duo shares a pair of common games so far, having both played Washington and Chicago. In both cases, Prescott had a vastly superior raw QBR (98.8 to 58.8 against Chicago and 88.2 to 30.7 against Washington) to Wentz.Moving the chains on third downOne big spot in which Prescott has separated himself from Wentz is third down. Prescott has the sixth-best raw QBR on third down, with a 72.0, while Wentz ranks 22nd with a 36.8.The big driver hhere is their conversion rates when passing.dddddddddddd Both have converted their only third-down scramble attempt and have taken five sacks apiece, but when they do throw on that down, Prescott has converted 48 percent of his attempts into first downs, where Wentz has converted only 35 percent of his attempts -- less than the league average of nearly 40 percent.Overall Prescott is completing 73.1 percent of his third-down pass attempts, best of any quarterback in the league, while Wentz is connecting at a 56.3 percent rate, slightly less than the league average (59.4 percent).Wentz reliant on short passesNo qualified quarterback has a higher percentage of pass attempts come on screen plays than Wentz at 16 percent, and only Matthew Stafford has attempted more screen passes overall (32 to Wentzs 29). Wentz also has the second-highest percent of attempts at or behind the line of scrimmage of qualified quarterbacks, slightly behind Alex Smith at 27.6 percent.These shorter passes by design are set up to help the quarterback, and QBR takes that into account when dividing credit on the play. So when Wentz connects with running back?Darren Sproles 5 or 6 yards behind the line of scrimmage and Sproles ends up with a big gain, most of the credit there is given to Sproles and the offensive line, not Wentz. Meanwhile, Prescott is in the bottom third of the league in passes at or behind the line of scrimmage, with just 17 percent of his attempts in that range, less than the league average of 20.7 percent.When we add everything up, we see that Wentz has not outplayed other quarterbacks who have faced the same defenses, is not converting third downs at a high rate and is reliant on having his receivers make plays for him on short passes, all in contrast to Prescott.All of the above tells the QBR story -- even if the raw numbers and team records would suggest the players are equal.? ' ' '