The 2021 World Series is set after the Atlanta Braves beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games with a final 4-2 win on Saturday. On the other side of the bracket, the Houston Astros beat the Boston Red Sox in six games, too, but finished their series on Friday.

Each team will have a couple days off now before the World Series starts Tuesday in Houston. I’ll save you a “how did these teams get here?” diatribe, as Houston/Atlanta wasn’t exactly at the top of everyone’s predictions at the beginning of the season (let alone in July or August), but let’s look at a couple questions whose answers may sway how this series swings.

Will Eddie Rosario Keep Hitting?

Atlanta scored 28 runs in the six games of the NLCS. Eddie Rosario knocked in nine of them. That’s the primary reason why Rosario was named the NLCS MVP Saturday after Atlanta locked down the series.

The Braves acquired him in July at the trading deadline (for Pablo Sandoval‘s 1-for-37 slump and a couple bucks, no less) as he was recovering from an oblique injury, and since calling him up in late August, Rosario has an OPS bordering on 1.000. That’s nearly 50 games’ worth of at-bats.

Over the whole postseason, Rosario has gone 18-for-38 (.474) with a couple timely home runs and extra base hits, none more than his three-run home run in Game 6 of the NLCS to put the Braves up 4-1, a lead they secured.

It’s the best Rosario has ever played in his career, so the main question is: can he keep it up for another series?

They’re smaller sample sizes, but Rosario is lifting the ball in the air a lot more since coming to Atlanta (47 percent, a career high). Houston pitching, on the other hand, produced a higher percentage of ground balls than any other American League team this season (44.5 percent). This is just one player-versus-pitching-staff matchup, but it’s indicative of what will play out in the series as a whole. Atlanta as a team hit ground balls at less of a rate than any other team in baseball outside of the Giants. One battle of attrition will come when Houston pitchers fight to keep the ball on the ground against a team that hasn’t shown any propensity to do that.

One of Houston’s primary ground-ball getters, though, is Lance McCullers Jr., who will likely be out for the entire World Series with a forearm issue. So that leads to…

Do The Astros Have Enough Pitching?

Without Lance McCullers Jr., Houston starters struggled through the first four games of the American League Championship Series.

No starter made it through the fourth, and it wasn’t by design.

Game 1: Framber Valdez, 2 2/3 innings, 64 pitches, three runs (two earned)
Game 2: Luis Garcia, one inning, 33 pitches, five runs (all earned)
Game 3: Jose Urquidy, 1 2/3 innings, 57 pitches, six runs (five earned)
Game 4: Zack Greinke, two innings, 37 pitches, two runs (all earned)

That’s not good. That totals to 7 1/3 innings and 16 runs allowed by Houston starters through the first four games. They somehow went 2-2 in those games. (Boston’s poor performance with runners in scoring position is really to blame for that, as well as solid performances by the Houston bullpen, especially in the Greinke game.)

In Games 5 and 6, Valdez and Garcia tightened up, allowing just one run over 13 2/3 innings. They won both those games pretty handily. Valdez’s eight-inning, one-run gem Wednesday can’t go unmentioned, either, and that’s the kind of pitching performance Houston is going to need in the World Series. The bullpen held up as reinforcements in the ALCS. The same might not be true for the World Series. Valdez and Garcia will absolutely have to pitch well, then they’ll also need someone like Urquidy or Greinke to deliver length and effectiveness in the Game 3/4 range, too.

Can Braves Pitchers Calm Astros Bats?

Both by wRC+ (116) and runs per game (5.41), the Astros were the best offense in baseball this year. That’s carried over to the playoffs as they’ve scored 67 runs in 10 games. (Atlanta’s scored 40 in as many games.)

The ‘Stros were led by Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker and Yuli Gurriel in the ALCS, which is crazy because Carlos Correa, José Altuve, Michael Brantley and Alex Bregman were secondary offensive players.

Atlanta’s pitching staff has been striking out a ton recently, none more notable than when Tyler Matzek struck out three Dodgers–including Mookie Betts–in a second-and-third with no outs situation during Game 6. Houston, however, strikes out less and makes more contact than anyone in the league. I’m not positive Atlanta has the firepower to keep up with Houston’s offense, so it’ll be on Max Fried, Ian Anderson, Charlie Morton and the bullpen to keep Houston’s bats at bay as much as possible.

Prediction

I don’t see this series going more than five or six games in the Astros direction.

The Astros are the best offense that made the playoffs, and the Braves are running on peak performances from a handful of players (Rosario, AJ Minter, Will Smith). This honestly reminds me a bit of the Royals and Mets World Series in 2015, where the Mets made a miracle run to the World Series on the strength of some extremely hot and timely hitting and a handful of trade-deadline acquisitions.

Houston, like Kansas City in 2015, has been the consistent and rock solid team all season. Alvarez is playing extremely hot, similar to Rosario, but Houston’s lineup runs legitimately seven or eight guys deep, so much so that Alex Bregman–Alex Bregman!!–was their sixth or seventh best hitter this year.

The Game 1 matchup (8:09 p.m. Tuesday on FOX) will likely be the most intriguing with two of the game’s best lefties–Framber Valdez and Max Fried–facing off. (They’ll likely face off again in Game 4 or 5, too.) After that, though, I think the series comes down to who will hit the mash the other team’s starters (both bullpens have been extremely solid), and I have more confidence in Houston doing that.

Let’s say Houston in six.

(Edit: Valdez faced off in Game 1 versus Charlie Morton.)