The Cubs and Nationals play for a trip to Los Angeles in game five of their NLDS. Kyle Hendricks takes on Gio Gonzalez. Hendricks makes his ninth post-season start. He pitched game one against the Nationals and shut them out for seven innings, allowing two hits and three walks. It was a similar performance to his second start against the Dodgers in 2016, in which he won the clinching game with 7 1/3 shutout innings. Although many of his post-season outings were short, his ERA stands at 1.98 thanks to few walks and hits against him.
Gonzalez makes his sixth post-season start, and he has never gone more than five innings, and never received a decision. He walked 15 batters in 23 1/3 innings, although 11 of those came in his two starts in 2012. The second one of those was the painful game five in which the Nationals blew an early 6-0 lead to lose 9-7 to St. Louis at home, exactly five years ago today.
Both teams are hitting poorly. Michael Taylor‘s .273/.385/.545 is the only decent slash line on the Nationals, while Anthony Rizzo and Willson Contreras kind of hold that for the Cubs.
My feeling is that Hendricks gives the Cubs the advantage. How do you approach someone who can throw a pitch that is outside the strike zone until it darts over a corner? It’s tough to try to work his pitch count high, since taking pitches put one in poor counts. If a batter is aggressive, he winds up grounding out a lot and keeping Hendricks in the game longer.
Gonzalez needs to find what he had on July 31 of this year, when he threw eight one-hit innings against the Marlins in celebration of the last Jose Fernandez.
These are two experience post-season teams, with two experienced post-season pitchers. The Cubs proved last season they can come back from adversity to win. Washington has come back in series, but never all the way. I’m expecting a great game.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2z3zwDV
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