Let's break down the hitting showdown for the ages that is Bartolo Colon vs. Clayton Kershaw
On Thursday night at Dodger Stadium, two national treasures will do battle in the series finale between the Dodgers and the Mets - but this is far, far more than just an intriguing pitching matchup.
Ageless wonder Bartolo Colon will toe the rubber for the Metropolitans:
While Clayton Kershaw will answer the call for the host Dodgers:
This enticing matchup comes a night after Mets fireballer Noah Syndergaard clubbed two home runs off Kenta Maeda and drove in four runs, further proof that New York's hurlers know what they're doing.
Kershaw is brilliant nearly every time he takes the hill, while Colon's pinpoint control and flair for dramatic infield plays make him a valuable commodity even at age 42.
But there's also this: the reality we all live in today is different from the one it was last week thanks to Colon's first career home run.
By bringing his career home run tally to a robust one, he matches up with Kershaw in that offensive statistic. Kershaw, you may recall, hit an Opening Day home run in 2013 to break a 0-0 deadlock with the rival Giants and propel L.A. to a 1-0 win:
Chances are, each will face the other two or three times from the batter's box, give or take. In honor of that, which is quite obviously the juiciest angle by which to evaluate the showdown, here are a few choice offensive tidbits pertaining to both pitchers.
Hitting vs. the other team: advantage Kershaw
It's not often a stat line of .059/.111/.059 earns an offensive advantage, but in this case it does. That's Kershaw's line against the Mets all-time, spread across 11 games and 23 plate appearances. As for Colon against the Dodgers, things haven't gone very well: in five games and 11 trips to the plate, he enters Thursday's game .000/.000/.000.
Home run probability: advantage Colon
We all may have lost our minds when Colon hit his home run at Petco Park last week, but if you crunch the numbers he has a better HR/PA ratio (having hit one in 249 PA's) than Kershaw (who has just his one in 595 PA's to date).
Home run trot: advantage Colon
This one just has to land in Colon's favor simply because it happened at all. On one hand, Kershaw's was a clutch shot that more or less helped him will the team to a victory over the Giants and came with an emphatic trip around the bases, but on the other hand, Colon carried his bat with him up the first-base line and made his teammates flip out in the dugout. He wins.
Head-to-head: advantage Kershaw
Ready for some small sample size theater? Well, it doesn't get much more SSS than this: Kershaw has faced Colon four times, and has one strikeout - BUT, most importantly, he also has one base hit. So, his career line against him is .250/.250/.250. Colon's two trips to the plate against Kershaw, though, yielded no hits (and one strikeout), so he's sitting squarely at .000/.000/.000 again.
Patience at the plate: advantage Kershaw
Colon has walked zero times in his 249 plate appearances. The Major League record for most plate appearances in a career without a walk is 258 - set by Tracy Stallard, who pitched for the Red Sox, Mets and Cardinals from 1960-1966. 'Tolo only has to not walk in his next nine trips to the dish in order to tie that record.
Kershaw, on the other hand, has walked 20 times in his 595 plate appearances thus far in his career. That's probably partly because of his capability with the bat, something he demonstrates often:
Basestealing ability: advantage Kershaw
This one's the most cut-and-dry of the offensive comparisons between Kershaw and Colon, since Kershaw has one career stolen base and Colon has ... well, none (yet).
With all this context laid out nicely here, let's all hope something really crazy happens that bucks all of these "Colon never walks" narratives that are running rampant.