Postseason Predictions: NLCS Game 3

The Phillies have a hot hand ready to go on an anticipated cold night at Citizens Bank Park Sunday, when the best-of-seven National League Championship Series resumes.

The series is tied at 1, but the similarity ends there.

complete postseason coverage PostSeason.tv Instead of the 90-plus-degree temperatures at Dodger Stadium in Game 2, the needle is expected to stop in the upper 40s during Game 3, which begins at 8:07 p.m. ET on TBS.

But when you're hot, you're hot, and the Phillies' Cliff Lee certainly is cooking during the postseason. The veteran left-hander started the first and fourth games of the Phils' NL Division Series victory over the Rockies, winning Game 1 with a complete-game effort and allowing two earned runs, walking three and striking out 10 over 16 1/3 innings overall.

Lee faces a lineup that historically has not given him a whole lot of trouble. Of the Dodgers batters who've faced the southpaw at least 10 times, only Manny Ramirez (5-for-11, 2 HR, 5 RBIs) has hit him hard.

Opposing Lee Sunday night will be the Dodgers' Hiroki Kuroda, who'll be making his first start of this postseason. The Japanese right-hander hopes to pick up where he left off in 2008, when he held the Phillies to five hits and two runs over six innings in Game 3 of the NLCS.

The Phillies have 10 position players who've faced Kuroda, and they've struggled to a meager .128 average with two RBIs, three walks and 11 strikeouts in 47 at-bats against the 34-year-old.

So -- at least according to the numbers -- a classic pitchers' duel could be in the works.

The following chart breaks down how the experts from MLB.com and MLB Network see Game 3 of the NLCS shaping up.