Now, this is an elite pitcher match up. Walker Buehler and Patrick Corbin are going to be on the hill, both of these guys are two the best pitchers in the game right now. This is what postseason baseball is all about and I could not be more excited it. Here is Dodgers Nationals Game One Pitching Matchup.
Walker Buehler
Buehler looks at every part of an ace so far in his career. He’s got a pitcher body throws hard and has pretty elite breaking stuff. He finished this year with 215 strikeouts and a 3.01 FIP. Buehler ranks 5th in FIP and 11th in WAR for pitchers. I really do believe he is a top 10 pitcher in baseball.
Buehler throws the fastball a lot. He throws it over half of the time and really throws it all over the zone. Sometimes it seems like he could throw only his fastball and still dominate major league hitters. I guess that’s what happens when your fastball averages 96.8 mph. Allowing .633 ops and a 71 OPS+ on your fastball is pretty extraordinary. That’s numbers you see mostly on pretty elite breaking balls. It’ll be interesting to see if he can throw his fastball passed the Nationals hitters.
Its pretty clear what Buehler is going to do with the slider. He’s going to throw it to the back foot of lefties and down and away to righties. The slider is thrown pretty hard averaging 87 and he can touch 91 to 92 with it. His slider is an elite pitch. It has a strike rate of 35.7 percent and and a .208 batting average against it. If right handed hitters can’t lay off of the slider down and away its going to be a long day.
So Buehler’s cutter is basically a harder version of his slider, it sits at about 93 and gets up to the high 90’s. You can see in the chart the cutter is a little bit closer to the middle of the strike zone then the slider. It seems like it could be a bad thing but its really not. Basically what this allows Buehler to do is throw the fastball inside, the cutter middle away and the slider as a wipeout pitch down and way. That’s exactly why he so dominates all these pitches look exactly the same coming out of his hand. Then the fastball stays straight and the cutter slider breaks away from the barrel.
Another pitch that follows along with Buehler being the prototypical pitcher in baseball right now. The curveball has more downward break then the slider and leaves the hand in the same way. It actually has more higher strikeout percentage than the slider. I absolutely love the locations Buehler throws his curveball.
Where Buehler throws everything is exactly what you want out of a starting pitcher and everything he throws in above average. The main thing to watch for with him is the tunneling on all of his pitches. Everything he throws is above average to great. Just sit back relax and watch one of the best in the game get after it today.
Patrick Corbin
Another one of my favorite pitchers in the game. I just love watching him pitch. He throws a thousand sliders a game and each one is a thing of beauty. The Dodgers will probably load up on righty dominate line up to try and combat Corbin’s stuff.
Everything you’ll see from Corbin is him basically setting up his slider which is a great game plan. You can see that he throws his four-seamer almost exclusively to his glove side and mostly tries to keep it out of the zone. His Fastball sits around 93 with ok movement on it. Batters have a .899 OPS against his fastball this year. The good thing though is that he doesn’t throw it very often, especially for being a starting pitcher. A big thing for Corbin will be if he can sneak the fastball in enough to keep hitters off-balance.
Corbin’s sinker is another pitch that is pretty much only thrown because you can’t throw 100 percent sliders. His sinker is actually an average major league pitch. Opponets have 104 WRC+ against it and a 58 percent ground ball rate. He is going to pound the sinker down and in to lefties which is a great place to set up his go-to pitch.
This might be my favorite thing I ever wrote about. Patrick Corbin’s slider is the best pitch in baseball and i really don’t want to hear otherwise. When he’s pitching stop strolling through twitter and just watch how dirty it is. You can see he wants to bury it down and down and away on lefties. When he throws it to righties it is the definition of a back-foot slider.
You have a real chance to see a hitter fall down swinging or swing at a pitch that hits him today. The numbers on his slider are absolutely ridiculous. The slash line against it is .158/.199/.265 and only a 26 WRC+. That’s absolutely ridiculous and i know he throws his slider more than anyone else in baseball but I don’t know how he doesn’t throw it even more. The strikeout rate on his slider is 50.3 percent. I’m telling you cancel everything you had plan and watch this pitching match up today.
Final Thoughts
This is clearly the premier pitching matchup today. Both of these guys can absolutely dominate any line up on any day. I really hope we get a 2-1 game with about 25 strikeouts in it. This is what postseason baseball is all about two of the pitchers in the league going head to head. The only problem is both of these line ups are pretty good and have some tough matchups and you never know when a pitcher won’t have his best stuff. All in all, I can’t wait for this one playoff baseball is finally back and there is nothing better. Dodgers Nationals Game One Pitching Matchup.
