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The Dodgers and Giants give us one of the best pitching matchups possible on Wednesday night, with Clayton Kershaw and Madison Bumgarner facing off at AT&T Park. But despite the two rival teams playing so often every year, this is only the fourth career matchup between the two ace left-handers.
Kershaw is 14-5 with a 1.43 ERA in 26 career games against the Giants, including 25 starts, with 191 strikeouts and 34 walks in 189 innings.
Bumgarner is 11-5 with a 2.54 ERA in 17 career games against the Dodgers, including 16 starts, with 101 strikeouts and 21 walks in 106⅓ innings.
The two pitchers met once each in 2011, 2012 and 2013, with Kershaw winning their first matchup and Bumgarner taking the last two. The totals in those three starts:
Kershaw: 21⅔ IP, 20 hits, five runs (four earned runs), two walks, 23 strikeouts, no home runs.
Bumgarner: 19 IP, 17 hits, seven runs, six walks 19 strikeouts, two home runs.
At the plate, Bumgarner is 1-for-7 with four strikeouts against Kershaw, while Kershaw is 3-for-5 against Bumgarner.
Last year Bumgarner captured the Silver Slugger Award as the best-hitting pitcher in the National League, hitting .258/.286/.470 with four home runs and a whopping 15 RBI. The only single-season pitcher RBI total higher in the last three decades was Mike Hampton, driving in 16 in 2001.
Kershaw has lasted at least seven innings in 12 straight starts against the Giants, and in 16 of his last 17 against them. The one start in that span that he didn't reach seven innings was June 26, 2012, when he allowed two runs in six innings and struck out eight.
Both have struggled a bit out of the gate in 2015. Kershaw has yet to last seven innings in a start this year, and has a 4.42 ERA and 3.51 FIP in three starts, with a league-leading 26 strikeouts and six walks in 18⅓ innings.
Bumgarner followed up arguably the greatest pitching postseason ever with a 5.29 ERA and 4.19 FIP in three starts, with 11 strikeouts and two walks in 17 innings.
So far this season there have been 10 MLB games in which both starting pitchers lasted seven innings. In two of those, both starters lasted eight innings — Jeff Samardzija and David Price on April 17, then Adam Wainwright and Mike Leake on Sunday.
No starting pitcher has lasted longer than 6⅓ innings against the Dodgers this season.
Game info
Time: 7:15 p.m. PT
TV: SportsNet LA