Dodgers Take NLDS Game 1 with Two-Hitter

The Dodgers got their 2019 postseason off to a convincing start, blanking the Nationals 6-0 in a game that remained close longer than it should have. Walker Buehler earned his first postseason win, throwing six mostly strong innings marred only by a dicey fourth.

Hyun-Jin Ryu has been getting more attention where the Cy Young race is concerned by virtue of his league-leading 2.32 ERA, but with both Ryu and Clayton Kershaw now in their 30s, Buehler has more clearly become the team’s build-around pitcher. For the first time in his career, Buehler was given the Game 1 nod and responded by allowing just a single hit in six innings, while striking out eight. The scoreless outing brings Beuhler’s consecutive postseason scoreless innings streak to 16.2 innings; his last run allowed was a solo homer given up to Christian Yelich in the 2018 NLCS. The next time Buehler fails to strike out seven batters in a postseason game, it will be the first time.

The fourth inning was a very near thing for Buehler and the Dodgers. Only up 2-0 at that point in the game, Buehler threw 11 of his 13 fastballs outside of the strike zone, allowing all three of Washington’s walks in the game. The pitches weren’t a function of failing to get borderline strikes on the edge of the zone, either; five of the fastballs weren’t anywhere close to the strike zone, including two to Adam Eaton that would have been high balls to Manute Bol.

Buehler’s fourth inning a close call continued when facing Juan Soto with Adam Eaton and Anthony Rendon on-base. Soto put up a 1.000 OPS against right-handed pitchers in 2019, but he’s struggled against sliders with a .161 batting average and a .274 slugging against sliders from righties. Buehler left a tempting one right in Soto’s wheelhouse and Soto was just an eyelash away from fully crushing it. But after a Howie Kendrick walk, an easy groundout from Asdrúbal Cabrera left the bases loaded and the Nats scoreless.

While it’s hard to find too many things to complain about when you win 6-0, the Dodgers did miss some opportunities to get to Patrick Corbin early. Corbin’s slider had its usual nastiness, but his control of it was spotty at times, especially in a first inning in which all but two of his sliders were well out of the strike zone. Like most slider-heavy pitchers — and few are more slider-heavy — Corbin survives by painting the lower corner, not by tying sticks of dynamite to the paint cans. While Corbin got all three of his outs on nasty sliders, in the first he threw four in the dirt that nobody offered at, a dangerous game when you’ve been walking the bases loaded.

Some of the worst parts of the Nationals bullpen are no longer on the roster, but you still saw glimpses of why they went to Stephen Strasburg in the winner-take-all game against the Brewers rather than trusting their middle relievers. Tanner Rainey allowed two hits in relief of Corbin in the seventh inning and as is his wont, Fernando Rodney came in and walked the bases loaded, issuing a free pass to Chris Taylor after starting out 0-2.

The damage was already done by the time Hunter Strickland entered the game to pour gasoline on the fire. Gavin Lux and Joc Pederson both hit homers, Pederson’s a monster 114.9 mph shot that may have come near to knocking over the foul pole. And two homers almost became three as Justin Turner just missed a long ball of his own to center, the fourth barrel of the inning allowed by Strickland, who surrendered four of the five barrels hit in the game.

While there were more walks than hits last night for the 32nd time in postseason history, the game didn’t come close to matching the all-time walk-hit record for a game, which stands at nine from a 2001 ALCS contest in which Roger Clemens combined with Paul Abbott to allow only one hit while walking 12 batters.

Fielding percentage is a lousy defensive statistic, but Howie Kendrick’s two errors were of the embarrassing variety. The first error put Buehler, a .118 career hitter, on first base; the second, the third swingiest play in the game at -7.4% of win expectancy for the Nationals, put the Dodgers up 2-0. It may have been even more damaging if not for Chris Taylor also attempting to score and being tagged out by a mile.

By themselves, Kendrick’s second error and Strickland’s homers allowed would not have saved the game for the Dodgers. But they did allow Los Angeles to be less aggressive with their bullpen choices, saving the team from using some of the most important arms in a bullpen that doesn’t have quite the same depth as in past postseasons. Kenta Maeda continued his postseason run in the bullpen, lowering his career postseason relief ERA to 1.86 with 1.2 hitless innings. And Joe Kelly’s mysteriously reported “lower body injury” wasn’t enough to keep him from protecting the 6-0 lead or hitting 98 mph on eight pitches.

By the ZiPS projections, the Nationals came into Game 1 as the underdog with the best projected chance of defeating the favorite and advancing; the computer gauged the series as almost a coin-flip (50.7% Dodgers vs. 49.7% Nationals). While that might seem counterintuitive because of the disparity in their seasonal records, the Nationals, with middling depth but with a star tier that can match any team in baseball, were in a good position to upset the Dodgers, a team only actually favored in two of the five projected matchups. A win against Buehler would have made the updated projections 71.9%-28.1% in favor of the Nationals; instead, ZiPS now favors the Dodgers 66% to 34%. While the Nats seemed headed that way anyway, they likely no longer have the option to pitch Aníbal Sánchez in Game 2 instead of a short-rested Strasburg.

The Nationals advanced in the playoffs for the first time in franchise history in 2019. Extending that streak to two is now a lot harder.





Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.

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stever20member
4 years ago

what if game 5 is Strasburg vs Buehler?

Also think it’s interesting if Strasburg wins 1 of his 2 starts- the Nats change into pretty decent favorites. 57% in game 3 and 60.6% in game 4.

It will be really interesting to see Strasburg tonight on only 34 pitches on Tuesday.

And like I said on the chat thread messages- last nights outing with Kolarek doesn’t happen as it did last night next season with the 3 batter minimum. Either Kolarek has to face Kendrick and Cabrera, or Maeda has to face Soto.

drew_willymember
4 years ago
Reply to  stever20

What is our understanding of the 3-batter rule exactly? I’m not sure I have a clear one. It seems like pitchers must face 3 batters unless they finish an inning. Is that right?

Can Kolarek face one batter, go to first base while a RHP faces two batters to end an inning, then return to the mound to face the first two batters of the next inning? Then can a second RHP face just the third batter in this second inning and be replaced by a fourth reliever to start the third inning?

stever20member
4 years ago
Reply to  drew_willy

Pitchers must face 3 batters unless they finish the inning….

And to your other question, nope. My understanding of the rule is that Kolarek must be the pitcher for 3 straight batters… After that, he can come out of the game…

shumway
4 years ago
Reply to  stever20

How would MLB prevent pitchers from having “injuries” in key situations and unable to face the minimum # of batters? This also gives the next pitcher unlimited time to warm up. How can that be controlled vs. all the other gamesmanship? In NFL injuries with no timeouts left have time/clock rundown consequences so I’d like to see a penalty such as an 2-0 starting count to the next batter if a pitcher cannot continue for the min. batters.

stever20member
4 years ago
Reply to  shumway

I think they’ll probably do that by forcing someone who is hurt to go on the IL. Which shelves them for 15 days. IN the playoffs, they’re out this series and next series.

shumway
4 years ago
Reply to  stever20

Pitchers with legitimate short term injuries (blister, cramps) could be motivated to push themselves beyond what they’re comfortable with as to not be out of action for two weeks . I don’t think there’s a perfect answer, but when rules mandate minimums for playing time it creates so many other issues, all at the expense of speeding up the game.

lilpudgemember
4 years ago
Reply to  shumway

yeah a mandatory IL stint seems wrong, to protect players who are legitimately too hurt to face another batter that day but not too injured to pitch in the next two weeks. Maybe a mandatory 2 or 3-day rest IL that is reliever specific? Once in a while that could be unfair to a team that had a legitimate tiny issue, like a cramp, where the player would be good to go the next day or with just one day off, but 3 days without a LOOGY seems like more than you’d want to do, just to avoid letting the guy face a righty.

stever20member
4 years ago
Reply to  lilpudge

Maybe a 2-3 games rest for first time, then IL every other time. Make it where you can’t just game it- as teams would try to do.