The Los Angeles Dodgers won a Major League leading 104 games, finishing the season with a 11-game lead over the NL West’s second place Arizona Diamondbacks. Now, the two teams matchup for a best of five series. Despite the difference in overall record, the D-Backs won’t be intimidated by L.A. Arizona won the season series, 11-8, outscoring the Dodgers by 18-runs in those 19 games.
This series will begin on Friday, October 6, 2017 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The National League Division Series showdown will be televised nationally on TBS.
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Starting Pitching Matchups
Given the expected disparity between the Rockies and Diamondbacks in the Wild Card game, there were several analysts calling for Arizona to give the ball to Robbie Ray instead of Zack Greinke, saving the ace for the division series. Instead, team ended up using both Greinke and Ray to get through the Wild Card game, leaving someone else to start Game 1.
Greinke and Ray won’t be available until later in the series after Ray tossed 2.1 innings in relief on Wednesday and Greinke managed just 3.2 innings, his shortest start of the year and the shortest postseason start of his career.
While Arizona’s answer for Game 1 is a question mark, the Dodgers answer is a given: Clayton Kershaw.
Still widely accepted as the best pitcher in baseball, Kershaw did nothing to call question to that this season. He missed a few starts—again—but still ended up going 18-4 with a 2.31 ERA. Both the win total and ERA leads the NL.
Kershaw wasn’t tops in WHIP this year, but still did well keeping runners off base, allowing less than one walk and/or hit per inning. He also once again led the way in strikeout to walk ratio, sitting down 6.73 batters for each he walked.
While there’s very little not to like about Kershaw, the one thing for the D-Backs to hang their hats on is his mediocre last month. He went 3-2 with a 3.48 ERA in his last six starts. Those are great numbers for most pitchers, but show that Kershaw is still human.
The southpaw will also feel the pressure to prove himself in the postseason. His playoff resume is a bit uneven. He’s made 18 appearances—and 14 starts—but is 4-7 with a 4.55 ERA. Those numbers are a bit misleading, but have become part of the narrative for Kershaw: the best regular season pitcher, but a postseason bust. Some of that is not fair as he’s generally gone six or seven strong innings in a start, but has been asked to go a bit too far because of the lack of confidence in the middle relievers leading to Kenley Jansen in the ninth.
Will Kershaw do a better job of pushing through those innings this time around? Alternatively, will Dave Roberts better read when his ace has thrown enough?
Pushing into Game 2, the Dodgers have made the curious decision to start Rich Hill instead of Yu Darvish. As it turns out, the decision is rooted in Hill’s statistical splits. The southpaw has a 10.38 career ERA at Chase Field where he’d have to start if he were pitching Game 3. Meanwhile, he’s pitching to a 2.77 ERA at home this year and 4.06 mark on the road.
Back-to-back southpaws was going to happen at some point in this series as Darvish figures to be the lone right-hander with Alex Wood the likely fourth starter if one is needed.
Back to Hill, the veteran is 12-8 with a 3.32 ERA and 1.091 WHIP in 135.2 innings. He went seven scoreless in his last start of the year and did have nine no-hit innings back in August, but generally throws five to six innings a start. The length is generally the downside, the upside for the curveball specialist is the quality. He’s allowed two runs or fewer in each of his last five starts and has allowed more than three runs just one time since the middle of June.
When Darvish finally takes the ball in Game 3, it’ll be on the heels of three very fine outings. Darvish was slow to adjust to his new surroundings in Los Angeles, but his last three starts have been encouraging. In that time, he’s gone 2-0 with just two runs—one earned—in 19.1 innings of work. He’s allowed only nine hits and one walk in those three games while striking out 21.
Darvish’s second start in a Dodgers’ uniform came against the D-Backs at Chase Field. In that contest, he lasted only five innings, allowing two runs, but he struck out 10 Arizona hitters.
Provided Wood is the fourth starter you could do worse than a 16-3 record and 2.72 ERA.
Wood’s first half number dwarf those he put up since the break. He’s much closer to his past self since mid-July. He’s still 6-3 in that time with a solid 3.89 ERA and 1.242 WHIP. He’s also seen his home run rate jump up, giving up 13 in 71.2 innings.
The lefty, however, has made three starts—and four appearances—against Arizona on the year, going 3-0 and pitching very well.
Obviously, the D-Backs have not released their pitching rotation given the shakeup of burning their top two starters on Wednesday, but this is a deep rotation with plenty of options.
Greinke and Ray are the locks for the NLDS pitching staff, the other two arms will come from the trio of Patrick Corbin, Taijuan Walker and Zack Godley.
The entire rotation has pitched well all season. As a unit, they’re second in the NL with a 3.61 ERA. The Dodgers are first at 3.39.
Corbin has the team’s worst starter ERA at 4.03, but still managed to win 14-games and brings the most experience of the three remaining starters. The lefty also matches up well against a left-handed dominant Dodgers’ lineup. He, however, is 0-2 with a 5.06 ERA in two starts against L.A. this year.
After a good July and August, Corbin has regressed some in the last month.
Walker and Godley have both been pleasant surprises. Neither starter reached double-digits in wins, but they boast a 3.49 and 3.37 ERA respectively.
Once the duo of Ray and Greinke can pitch, again, Arizona will have a pair of quality arms to lean on if they need to come back from a series deficit.
Ray matches up well with the Dodgers. The young southpaw made just 28 starts and racked up a 5.5 rWAR while going 15-5 with a 2.89 ERA and 1.154 WHIP in 162 innings. He’s a strikeout machine with 12.1 strikeouts per nine innings. He will walk more than Greinke, that’s his weakness, but he limits the hits against him and gets the big strikeout when he needs it.
While the Dodgers’ bats have been much better against lefties this year compared to last, Ray is one southpaw they’ve struggled to figure out. In five starts against L.A., Ray is 3-0 with a 2.27 ERA, allowing just 24 hits in 31.2 innings and notching 53 strikeouts. He did walk 12 Dodgers in those 31.2 innings, but that hasn’t come back to haunt him.
Given the large number of strikeouts and high number of walks, Ray shouldn’t be expected to go too deep in the game. He can throw 100 pitches in less than six frames easily.
As for Greinke, he went 17-7 in the regular season with a 3.20 ERA and 1.072 WHIP in 202.1 innings pitched.
His Wild Card start is concerning, but it’s uncharacteristic, too. He should bounce back in a big way. Prior to that, he had averaged 6.1 innings per postseason start with a 3.55 ERA in nine playoff appearances.
Offensive Comparison
Arizona outscored the Dodgers in the regular season, but the ballpark each team plays in could be part of that. Chase Field is a hitter friendly park while Dodger Stadium skews towards pitchers.
In either case, both teams can score runs. We saw the offensive potential of the Diamondbacks already this postseason when the team hung 11 runs on the Rockies. To score those runs, Arizona hit the long ball, drove triple after triple—including one from Archie Bradley of all people. In the Wild Card game, we even saw the D-Back’s ability to play small ball with a two-out bunt driving in a run.
Arizona has a nice, versatile lineup. The heart and soul of the batting order is Paul Goldschmidt in in the three-hole. The MVP candidate ended the season with a .297 average, 36 homers, 120 RBIs and a .966 OPS. His numbers regressed after a slow September, but we saw him come through early on Wednesday with a three-run home run in the first.
Hitting behind Goldy is J.D. Martinez who has done his best Babe Ruth impression since coming over from the Tigers midseason. He has 45 homers on the year with 29 of them coming for the D-Backs in 62 games. In that time, he’s posted a .302/.366/.741 slash line.
While the duo is certainly the offensive highlight, there are many other strong role players on the team. A.J. Pollock and David Peralta are key pieces. Jake Lamb is a nice five-hole hitter. Down the stretch, this team was getting production up-and-down the order.
That production throughout the lineup was a staple of the Dodgers’ early season success. That went away during the team’s slump, but was coming back at the end of the year.
Still, in the last month, Cody Bellinger hit only three home runs despite slamming 39 on the year. In that same time, Corey Seager hit .213 with a .651 OPS and Yasmani Grandal batted .175.
The slumps of some of the team’s biggest bats is concerning, but the postseason can jumpstart some bats and the Dodgers have plenty of depth. Alongside Bellinger, Seager and Grandal, Justin Turner, Chris Taylor and Yasiel Puig all produced above-average or better production while playing most every day.
L.A. has six players with at least 20 homers, showing the team’s power, but the average is there, too.
Hitting against southpaws has historically been an issue for the Dodgers, but that’s minimized this year. Enrique Hernandez kills lefties and will be in left when a left-hander is on the bump.
Bullpen Breakdown
Arizona will hope to have plenty of imaginary arrows flying after Fernando Rodney closes out a few games in the NLDS.
The Diamondbacks’ bullpen has been a pleasant surprise posting a 3.78 ERA as a unit, good enough for fifth best in baseball. That’s one spot behind the Dodgers.
While both these teams have had great pens by the numbers, each pen has its share of questions going into this series.
For the Dodgers, the questions are around who bridges the gap to get to Kenley Jansen. Jansen is as shutdown as they come with a 1.32 ERA and 41 saves. He’s lights out, striking out 109 in 68.1 innings. If Los Angeles gets the ball to him in the eighth or ninth, the game is over, but what about before that?
Sure, L.A.’s bullpen ERA is great, but that was truly last year and the unit struggled before Jansen took the ball. Pedro Baez was the set up option all year, but lost the strike zone in the final month. Brandon Morrow has had a good year with a 2.06 ERA and 6-0 record. Could he be the key guy? What about Luis Avilan or Ross Stripling? Whoever it is, the Dodgers need an arm or two to step up, something they’ve struggled to find in years past.
In the other bullpen, the ninth inning is less stable. Rodney closed out the Wild Card game, but he had a four-run lead, gave up a run and didn’t have the cleanest inning. Can he deliver when it’s a one run game?
Getting to him is a less stressful question. Archie Bradley has been the team’s unsung hero all year. He gave up a couple runs on Wednesday after getting gassed running out a triple, but the right-hander has embraced the move to the bullpen. He’s been a good versatile arm that Torey Lovullo has used in many situations. Having someone who can do that is priceless in the postseason. We saw how big that was for the Indians with Andrew Miller last year and with the Royals in years past.
What about the rest of the pen? Is there another dependable option? One of the starters will be available that helps, but is Randall Delgado or someone like J.J. Hoover going to be dependable enough for Lovullo to trust?
Quick Pick
The Diamondbacks won the last six games between these two teams, sweeping back-to-back series with one in Arizona and one in Los Angeles. Those six wins did come during the stretch where the Dodgers’ lost 16 of 17. That, however, is not to take anything away from Arizona. They’re a large reason for that losing spell. L.A. did bounce back from that and finished strong, winning eight of its last 10 games, but Arizona’s final two months were much better than Los Angeles’.
Overall, bank on the Diamondbacks for the division series upset. They’ve got history beating L.A. this year and have the starting pitching and offense to matchup. While Arizona’s weakness is the bullpen, look for Bradley to make the difference and Rodney to do the job while the Dodgers struggle to find somebody to bridge the gap between the starters and Jansen.
MLB Odds: Diamondbacks over Dodgers in Five
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