Clayton Kershaw vs. Adam Wainwright Game 1 Ace Clash Is Crucial NLDS Tone-Setter

From the city that brought you Freddy vs. Jason, Alien vs. Predator and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World comes the latest and greatest in "vs." entertainment.

Clayton Kershaw vs. Adam Wainwright.

It's on. Or, it will be on when the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals kick off the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium at 6:37 p.m. ET. After missing each other in the 2013 NL Championship Series, two of the game's greatest pitchers will face off for the first time since 2012.

It'll be huge. Not just because it's exactly the kind of October pitching matchup that excites the adrenal glands, but because the outcome has big-time ramifications for the rest of the series.

Behold our cue to get serious about breaking things down. With our focus being on the pitching matchup, the first question is naturally whether Wainwright or Kershaw is the more dominant pit...

Alright, fine. That's hardly a sentence worth finishing. Not if we narrow our focus on what these two did in the regular season, anyway. It breaks down like this, via FanGraphs:

Player	GS	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	GB%	ERA
Kershaw	27	198.1	10.9	1.4	0.4	51.8	1.77
Wainwright	32	227.0	7.1	2.0	0.4	46.3	2.38

Kershaw missing a month on the disabled list is why Wainwright made more starts and pitched more innings. Aside from that, the only thing the 33-year-old right-hander did as well as his 26-year-old left-handed counterpart was limit home runs. 

Kershaw was better at striking guys out, limiting walks, getting ground balls and, naturally, keeping runs off the board. This was Clayton Kershaw at his most Kershawesome.

Not that simply being awesome is the only advantage Kershaw has, mind you.

Game 1 of the NLDS will be in Kershaw's backyard, where he posted a 1.70 ERA in 14 starts while holding opposing hitters to a .483 OPS and racking up a 10.54 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

We can also take a cue from FanGraphs' Mike Petriello and note that the Cardinals offense really isn't a candidate to execute the preferred game plan against Kershaw.

What Petriello found is that hitters have been jumping on Kershaw's first-pitch fastballs at an unusually high rate and are having success doing so with a .309 average.

Given how deadly his slider and curveball are when he's ahead in the count, Petriello has the right idea in thinking: "With those items in mind, it makes a lot of sense to swing early against Kershaw, because that first-pitch fastball might just be the best prayer you have..."

However, the Cardinals were not ranked highly among this year's first-pitch-fastball-hitting teams. According to BaseballSavant.com, they hit .318 against first-pitch fastballs. That ranked 23rd out of 30 teams.

So far, it's all coming up Kershaw. In the process, I'm aware how I've basically indicated Wainwright's chances of outpitching him are on the "none" side of the slim-to-none spectrum.

And that's a cue for a tonal shift. Because, heck, Wainwright is far from that hopeless.

Cardinals fans were probably reading all of the above thinking, "Hey, man, Wainwright is just as capable of dominating on a given day as Kershaw is!"

True. Very true. Draw up a list of pitchers who had the most starts of at least eight innings and no more than one earned run, and two names appear at the top of the list:

1. Clayton Kershaw: 12
2. Adam Wainwright: 10

Yes, Kershaw had more such starts. And yes, he did so in a smaller sample size. But as far as this specific stat is concerned, Wainwright is better suited to the task of matching Kershaw's dominance than anyone else.

Then you can look at what these two have done in October as starters:

Player	GS	IP	K/9	BB/9	H/9	HR/9	ERA
Kershaw	6	34.1	9.2	3.4	8.2	0.5	3.96
Wainwright	9	58.0	9.5	1.1	7.9	0.9	2.95

We're looking at two limited sample sizes, but what they say is that Wainwright's the better postseason starter. This doesn't swing things in Wainwright's favor on its own, but it's at least worth acknowledging.

There's something else to remember too: As fun as it is to talk about pitchers matching up against each other, they don't actually match up against each other.

"I'm only facing him maybe three times in the game," Wainwright recently told reporters. "I'm facing those Dodgers hitters. I can't worry about what he's going to do or what his job is on the mound. I have to go out there and get outs. That's what I have to do."

This points us in the direction of looking at how Wainwright has fared against the hitters he's likely to face, and he looks good there too:

Player	POS	Bats	PA	SO	BB	HR	OPS
Dee Gordon	2B	L	4	1	1	0	.833
Yasiel Puig	CF	R	10	5	0	0	.900
Adrian Gonzalez	1B	L	25	6	2	0	.584
Matt Kemp	RF	R	30	6	2	0	.348
Hanley Ramirez	SS	R	30	5	3	0	.522
Carl Crawford	LF	L	10	2	0	0	.400
Juan Uribe	3B	R	17	5	0	0	.471
A.J. Ellis	CF	R	8	1	0	0	.500
Clayton Kershaw	P	L	8	1	0	0	.000
Combined			142	32	8	0	.491

Note: Postseason plate appearances are included.

Really, the only hitters Wainwright's facing who have hit him well are Dee Gordon and Yasiel Puig, both of whom have done so in itty-bitty sample sizes.

That's a solid counterargument for Kershaw's matchup against the Cardinals' non-first-ball-fastball-hitting lineup, and it's not the only one.

There are a number of different lineup variations Cardinals coach Mike Matheny could go with, but we know Kershaw will be facing at least three hitters who have hit him well over at least 25 plate appearances apiece:

• Matt Carpenter: .778 OPS in 25 PA
• Matt Holliday: .714 OPS in 54 PA
• Yadier Molina: .764 OPS in 33 PA

So can Wainwright win? Oh, yeah. He can win.

Mind you, I won't take what we've just looked at and conclude that the Kershaw vs. Wainwright matchup is a tossup. That Kershaw is the superior pitcher with the home field counts for a lot. It's still hard not to like the idea of the Dodgers taking Game 1 behind him.

They'll be sitting pretty if they do. Zack Greinke will be set up to put the Cardinals in a 2-0 hole with a strong performance against Lance Lynn in Game 2. If not, it would only take one win in St. Louis against John Lackey or Shelby Miller to secure another start at home for Kershaw on full rest in Game 5.

But then there's the flip side: If Wainwright does outpitch Kershaw, he and the Cardinals will be sitting pretty while Kershaw and the Dodgers will be borderline screwed.

Given how excellent he was and how often he led the Dodgers to victory in the regular season, wasting a Kershaw start in Game 1 might totally suck the wind out of the Dodgers' sails. Even if it doesn't, a huge amount of pressure will certainly be put on Greinke in Game 2.

And win or lose, the Dodgers' options of winning or extending the series in St. Louis would rest on a choice between two lesser starters (Hyun-Jin Ryu and Dan Haren) in Games 3 and 4 or one lesser starter in Game 3 and Kershaw on short rest in Game 4. Neither option is appealing.

The Dodgers may have the edge with Kershaw on the mound in Game 1, but it's a small edge, and it's a game they need more than the Cardinals do. They need Kershaw to be Kershaw.

Which brings us, finally, to prediction time.

Here goes for the two pitchers:

Player	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR
Kershaw	7.2	6	2	1	2	9	0
Wainwright	7.0	7	3	3	0	7	1

Final score: Dodgers 4, Cardinals 3.

Kershaw will be Kershaw, his offense will get just enough off Wainwright and the Dodgers won't have to worry about doomsday scenarios for at least one more day.

Mind you, what actually happens is up to the baseball gods. And I hear they love stomping on predictions in October.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked. 

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