NEW YORK — So, you thought Jake Arrieta vs. Gerrit Cole was a good pitching matchup in the National League wild-card game? That was nothing.
Jacob deGrom and Zack Greinke will square off on the mound at Dodger Stadium on Thursday night in Game 5 of the National League Division Series (8 p.m. ET, TBS), with the opportunity to meet Arrieta’s Cubs at stake. It is as strong of an elimination game matchup as Major League Baseball has ever seen.
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Greinke’s ERA this year was 1.66, first in the National League, while deGrom was fourth at 2.54. That’s one spot on the leaderboard better each than Arrieta at 1.77 and Cole at 2.60.
The sum of 4.20 for Greinke’s and deGrom’s ERAs beats the Arrieta-Cole combo by 17 points, and it is the lowest sum of ERAs for starting pitchers in a win-or-go-home game since 1981, when the Dodgers’ Jerry Reuss, with a 2.30 ERA, pitched a five-hit shutout to outduel Astros ace Nolan Ryan, who had a 1.69 mark, in the deciding game of the National League Division Series.
The reason there was a National League Division Series in 1981 was that there was a players' strike in the middle of the campaign, so the standings were split into half-seasons. The strike limited Ryan to 149 innings and Reuss to 152 2/3. Greinke pitched 222 2/3 innings this season, deGrom 191.
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You could also look at Game 7 of the 1909 World Series, when Babe Adams of the Pirates, who had a 1.11 ERA during the season, got the better of the Pirates’ Bill Donovan, who had a 2.31 ERA. Their summed ERA of 3.42 would be by far the lowest in history for this scenario, but neither hurler qualified for the ERA title — they pitched a combined 270 1/3 innings.
That means, for a matchup of qualified pitchers, in non-strike seasons, deGrom vs. Greinke is the new standard, unseating Game 7 of the 1968 World Series, which pitted the Cardinals’ Bob Gibson at 1.12 against the Tigers’ Mickey Lolich at 3.19 — a sum of 4.31. Both men threw complete games, and Detroit earned a 4-1 win in St. Louis.
“For me, it would be up there,” Dodgers reliever J.P. Howell said of the matchup. “It’s one of the — you know, you got Zack, he’s been doing his thing all year long, and you got this young guy coming in with electric stuff, and he knows what he’s doing with it. And he’s aggressive. So you better be ready to get it going, and as a pitcher, you know, we like that. We appreciate watching that.”
Howell may have to work at some point. One person who will be a spectator for sure is Clayton Kershaw, whose seven dominant innings on three days’ rest on Tuesday forced the matchup for Thursday.
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“You know what, it’s probably dead even, to be honest,” Kershaw said. “As good as Zack is and has been the whole year, deGrom has been the same. So there’s really no home-field advantage when you’re facing a guy like deGrom. We saw that in Game 1. He’s very impressive, you know, just very tough to square up. If you can get strikeouts on heaters like he can, it’s really tough.”
The historic matchup should be a lot of fun for everyone, with the exception of fans of either team who enjoy breathing and, of course, the hitters.
“We’ve had big pitching matchups this whole series,” said Mets third baseman David Wright, who is 1 for 12 with five walks through four games. “I mean, you look at Kershaw-deGrom and then Greinke-(Noah) Syndergaard, and then you go back out there for deGrom-Greinke — if you like pitching matchups, this is the series for you.”
And Thursday night will be the game for you, arguably the greatest high-stakes matchup in the history of the sport.