Clayton Kershaw, Adam Wainwright will Square off in Game 1

Clayton Kershaw and Adam Wainwright will face each other in Game One of the National League Division Series as the Los Angeles Dodgers host the St. Louis Cardinals. The Dodgers ace led the National League and all of baseball with a 1.77 ERA, while Wainwright’s 2.38 mark ranked third in the NL.

The 26 year-old Kershaw captured his third consecutive ERA title, and will almost certainly win yet another Cy Young award. Despite battling arm soreness and missing his primary catcher, Yadier Molina for a good chunk of the season, the 33 year-old Wainwright posted the best ERA of his career.

Kershaw has been a dominant pitcher since his first full season in 2009. But, he’s taken his game to the next level this season. He missed six starts with a back injury yet still managed to lead the major leagues with 7.2 fWAR. His strikeout rate jumped more than six percentage points to an MLB-best 31.9 percent. At the same time he cut his walk rate to 4.1 percent and also boosted his ground ball rate to 51.8 percent.

Kershaw has always possessed a good fastball, and it averaged 93 miles per hour this year, a bit faster than the previous season. He’s well known for his curveball, and it’s one of the best in the game. This year he’s thrown his slider about 2.5 miles per hour harder, and the results have been devastating for hitters. Overall batters hit .150/.175/.238 against Kershaw’s slider, and they whiffed on the pitch 30 percent of the time.

While Wainwright did have the best ERA of his career, his strikeout and walk rate declined from the previous season. This year he fanned 19.9 percent of batters while walking 5.6 percent, compared to 22.9 percent and 3.7 percent the year prior. He suffered when Molina was on the disabled list as his pitch-calling and receiving abilities were missed. Also, the claims of arm fatigue are validated by a drop in average fastball velocity from 91.1 miles per hour to 90.2 miles per hour. After all, Wainwright threw nearly 280 innings between the regular season and postseason last year, and he’s thrown 227 more this season.

Though there are some indicators that Wainwright is tiring, he’s still an excellent pitcher. His fastball command is pinpoint, and he has a great 12-6 curveball. Between Kershaw and Wainwright expect to see a bevy of pretty breaking pitches. Wainwright will have his hands full with a very good Dodgers lineup that was red hot in September.

It’s game one of the NLDS, but at least on paper this might be the best pitching matchup of October.