St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Joe Kelly limited the Dodgers to two runs in six innings in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. (Associated Press photo)
Since it caught a few eyes with yesterday’s starting pitcher, I’m going to rip the Joe Kelly-versus-the-Dodgers statistics straight off baseball-reference.com. Check it out:
| PA | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS ▾ | SH | SF | IBB | HBP | GDP | missG | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Punto | 6 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .800 | .833 | 1.000 | 1.833 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Adrian Gonzalez | 10 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | .556 | .600 | 1.000 | 1.600 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Carl Crawford | 6 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .500 | .500 | .833 | 1.333 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Dee Gordon | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .500 | .500 | .500 | 1.000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Andre Ethier | 11 | 11 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | .273 | .273 | .636 | .909 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| Hanley Ramirez | 11 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | .250 | .455 | .375 | .830 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| Juan Uribe | 5 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .400 | .400 | .400 | .800 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| Yasiel Puig | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .200 | .333 | .200 | .533 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Mark Ellis | 11 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .100 | .182 | .100 | .282 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| A.J. Ellis | 11 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | .091 | .091 | .091 | .182 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Zack Greinke | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Clayton Kershaw | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Scott Van Slyke | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 85 | 78 | 23 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 13 | .295 | .353 | .449 | .802 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
Kelly is notorious for pitching out of trouble. So while Dodgers fans will be pleased to know that five players in today’s starting lineup have a career OPS of .800 or higher against Kelly (small sample size noted), there’s another stat worth calculating in this table. Only seven of the current Dodgers’ 23 hits against Kelly have fallen for RBIs. As a ratio, that’s one RBI for every 3.286 hits.
According to baseball-reference.com, there were 42,092 hits in MLB this season and 19,271 RBIs. That’s one RBI for every 2.184 hits.
So the table has its limits. As has been the case all series — painfully so, for the Dodgers — it’s not about how many hits you get. It’s about when you get them. St. Louis is batting .148 in the series and still leads three games to one.
A few more points of trivia:
• This is the third time the St. Louis Cardinals have led a National League Championship Series 3-1. The first two times, 1996 against the Atlanta Braves and last year against the San Francisco Giants, the Cardinals lost in seven games.
• Aloe Blacc is performing the National Anthem. The last time he sang The Star-Spangled Banner at Dodger Stadium was Opening Day of this year. The Dodgers won that game on the strength of Clayton Kershaw’s first career home run.
• The Dodgers have lost six straight series when they faced elimination at any point, dating to the 1995 National League Division Series. (source)
