Greinke and Kershaw to square off as D-backs face Dodgers

Friday night’s game between the Diamondbacks (7-3) and Dodgers (5-5) will be one you won’t want to miss.

D-backs ace Zack Greinke, now in his second season with Arizona since he was a “1A” ace with the Los Angeles Dodgers, will face the man who used to pitch before him in the Dodgers rotation: Clayton Kershaw.

Friday pitching matchup at #Dodgers Stadium is most expensive in MLB history — Zack Greinke ($34m this season) vs Clayton Kershaw ($35.57m)

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) April 13, 2017

Regardless of the fact that they’re former teammates, this is still a marquee matchup. Greinke and Kershaw are both former Cy Young Award winners — Grienke has one while Kershaw boasts three — and they have 10 combined top-10 finishes in Cy Young voting between them.

They’re also both in the top ten of most career strikeouts by active pitchers: Greinke is 7th with 2,031 and Kershaw is 9th with 1,932 (and Kershaw has pitched over a hundred fewer games than Greinke in his career).

But their former common ground as the Dodgers’ nasty one-two punch only heightens the drama of Friday’s game at Dodger Stadium.

Greinke vs. the Dodgers

Despite the fact that Greinke has pitched 14 big-league seasons and only three of those were with the Dodgers, the two hurlers have nonetheless never faced each other. In fact, because Greinke has pitched 223 of his 392 big league games as a member of the American League, he’s only faced the Dodgers seven times in his career.

Last season, his first since leaving the Dodgers, Greinke faced the boys in blue three times. He pitched a combined 17.2 innings, allowing 11 earned runs on 20 hits and six walks with 16 strikeouts (5.60 ERA, 1.472 WHIP). Two of the three appearances were quality starts (QS).

But the last time Greinke pitched at Dodger Stadium, on Sept. 5, 2016, he surrendered a whopping five home runs to five different hitters, all of whom are still on the Dodgers.

This season, Greinke has pitched 11.2 innings in two starts, allowing just three runs on nine hits with two walks (2.31 ERA, 0.943 WHIP). Both starts were at Chase Field.

Kershaw vs. the Diamondbacks

The Dodgers’ southpaw ace has pitched all 10 of his big league seasons with Los Angeles, and has thus faced the Diamondbacks 24 times — 12 times at home and 12 times on the road.

In those 24 games — all starts — Kershaw is 12-8 with a 2.75 ERA and 1.174 WHIP in 147.1 innings pitched. He also carries a 168-48 K/BB ratio.

In more recent history, last season, Kerhaw pitched against the D-backs just once: On June 15 at Chase Field, the lefty went 7.1 innings, allowing two runs on five hits with a walk and an eye-popping 11 strikeouts.

What to watch for

Home away from home: Paul Goldschmidt hits pretty well at Dodger Stadium. In 45 games there, he’s hit .335 (60-for-179) with 14 home runs and 37 RBI, slugging .609.

Not Goldschmidt: Though Goldy rakes at Dodger Stadium, several other core offensive pieces for the Diamondbacks haven’t fared as well. David Peralta, Jake Lamb, Yasmany Tomas and Chris Owings are a combined .185 (45-for-242) with two home runs and 52 strikeouts.

Hot D-backs bats: Entering Thursday — an off-day for Arizona — the D-backs boasted a .283 team batting average, the second-highest in baseball behind the Nationals. They also lead MLB in runs scored with 55.

Unproductive outs: Though they’ve been scoring runs, the Diamondbacks have been striking out — a lot. Their 91 whiffs are the second-most in the bigs at the moment behind Milwaukee, a bad omen for a team that’s set to face one of the most prolific strikeout pitchers in baseball. Kershaw’s 301 strikeouts two seasons ago were the most in the major leagues.

Ducks on the pond: In the Dodgers’ most recent series, a 2-1 series loss at Wrigley Field, Los Angeles went 1-for-24 with runners in scoring position. Yikes.

The Dodgers lose, 4-0. They are 5-5. They went 1-for-24 with RISP this series and stranded 26 batters. That won’t play.

— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughTimes) April 13, 2017

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First pitch for that game is at 7:10 p.m. and can be heard on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.

Follow @mattjlayman