By the time you read this, Game 1 will already be in the books. The National League Championship Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies began last night in L.A. This rematch of last year’s NLCS should be an epic battle as the Dodgers will be looking for redemption and last year’s World Series champion Phillies continue their quest for repeated greatness. Expect this series to go all seven games.

Who will win, you ask?

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “I believe that the more you know about the past, the better you are prepared for the future.”

With that in mind, let us look back to yesteryear in order to better predict what may happen in this year’s series.

The month was October. The year was 2008. The National League Division Series came to a close as the Los Angeles Dodgers swept the NL Central champion Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies bested the wild card Milwaukee Brewers in four.

When the two NL powerhouses met in the NLCS, the Phillies would end up winning in five games, finishing off the Dodgers at their stadium. In the series, Manny Ramirez went 8-for-15 with four runs, two home runs and seven runs batted in as the Dodgers’ sole bright spot. Pitching is usually the most important factor in playoff baseball, but the fact that the Dodgers had the National League’s lowest team ERA did not matter to Philadelphia. All the Phillies bats were hot, their bullpen was solid and Cole Hamels pitched two gems on his way to being named NLCS MVP. The Phillies would advance to the World Series, where they would defeat the Tampa Bay Rays and Hamels would once again be named MVP.

So what’s different this year?

The Phillies, again, have defeated the wild card team in four games. The Dodgers, again, have swept the NL Central division champion. The two teams again will meet in the NLCS to determine who will move on to the World Series.

This time, however, the Dodgers have the home field advantage. They are led by their 21-year-old, left-handed starter Clayton Kershaw. On the season Kershaw had a 2.79 ERA and struck out 185. So far against the Phillies, Kershaw is only 0-3 in four starts with a 6.34 ERA. RHP Vicente Padilla, RHP Hiroki Kuroda and LHP Randy Wolf will fill the remainder of the rotation. Padilla and Wolf were both recently Phillies pitchers.

As of now, the only announced Phillies pitchers will be Cole Hamels for Game 1, and Cliff Lee for Game 3. Do not be surprised if you see Pedro Martinez pitch Game 2. Game 4 will likely be pitched by either Joe Blanton or J.A. Happ. Hamels, Lee and Happ, as well as Scott Eyre and Antonio Bastardo in the bullpen, are all lefties. Overall, the Dodgers hold a .786 OPS against lefty pitchers.

Just like last year, the Dodgers starting pitching had an overall better season. However, despite Cole Hamels’s average season, he has owned the Dodgers. He dominated them last postseason, and during this season Hamels went 1-0 in two starts, throwing one complete game shutout on 97 pitches, with an additional no-decision where Hamels only gave up one run on seven hits as he struck out nine and watched the game go into extras and his bullpen blow it. The addition of Cliff Lee, last year’s American League Cy Young winner, also makes the Phillies playoff pitching far scarier than any statistics could indicate.

Only time will tell who has the better starting pitching.

The same can be said for who has the better bullpen. Last year Brad Lidge was untouchable in the postseason. This season he was anything but that as he blew 11 saves and held a 7.21 ERA. His two saves against Colorado in the NLDS may be an indication that he has his act together. Other relievers include Ryan Madson, Chad Durbin, Kyle Kendrick, Eyre and Bastardo. Another pitcher, Chan Ho Park, was added to the NLCS roster after just coming off the injured list. He is a veteran pitcher who won the first game this year when these two teams met.

The Dodgers bullpen consists of closer Jonathan Broxton, Ronald Belisario, Jeff Weaver, Chad Billingsley, George Sherrill and Hong-Chih Kuo. Broxton is a quality closer who finished out 36 of 42 games effectively. Sherrill and Kuo were virtually untouchable for lefty batters during the season; however, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley are not your typical lefties. Chad Billingsley, though very talented, finds himself in the bullpen after an atrocious second half of the season where he saw himself demoted from his starter position. Right now I’d give the edge in the bullpen to the Dodgers, but who knows which Brad Lidge we’ll see.

After watching the NLDS, we saw that many in the postseason suffer from stage fright. Do not expect the Dodger bats to suddenly awaken against Hamels and Lee after struggling against Carpenter and Wainwright. Andre Ethier was a beacon of hope, though, as he bat 6-for-12 with five runs and two homers. Manny was very quiet for the first two games of his series, but in Game 3 his bat awoke as he knocked in a couple ribbies.

While Colorado’s pitching is not the same as the Dodgers’, the Phillies’ bats continued to do what they were doing all season. Jayson Werth went 5-for-14 with two home runs, four RBIs and five runs. Utley went 6-for-14, with a homer, an RBI and five runs scored. Ryan Howard would go 6-for-16 with six RBIs and three runs scored.

This series has all the makings of a classic. Both teams have plenty of great hitters, but look for pitching to be the determining factor. We know that Philadelphia’s sluggers will produce in crunch time. Although Andre Ethier’s bat has been smoking hot, if the Dodgers are to win, Matt Kemp is going to need to get on base, and Manny is going to have to be Manny. If the series is to go seven games, I would say that home field advantage would be important, but we saw in last year’s NLCS that the Phillies can beat the Dodgers twice in a row on the road to win.

So who’s going to win?

I don’t know. My coin flip isn’t any better than yours.