Marquee match-ups

Tried a few search terms and couldn't find a thread...People sometimes call attention to great pitching match-ups elsewhere; that's the purpose of this thread. For me, it should involve two starters who are either a) established stars pitching up to or close to their career norms, or b) a less than established star having a fantastic year (i.e., Lance Lynn this year). I don't know--I'm guessing most nights there's one, you don't often see two, and some nights there aren't any. Tonight: CC vs. David Price. I know CC's ERA is a little higher than normal right now, but his peripherals are good, and--thought-crime!--he's on target for 20 wins. Price continues to be one of the best starters in baseball.

kind of a draw, in regards to pitching lines...
Price: 5 IP, 8k, 4BB, 3H, 1 ER
Sabatia: 7 IP, 12K, 1BB, 7H, 3ER (+2 unearned)

Yeah, I noticed that Sabathia's line was actually pretty good, especially the K/BB. Higher game score?

If my calculations are right, Price = 61, Sabathia = 58. So: close, but no.

Tonight: Mets v. Nats. Dickey v. Wang.

Good "traded for each other" game going on with Parker v. Cahill

hector noesi v jason marquis

see what i did there

Price-Dickey tonight is p good

price has fallen apart since the 4th inning

Second-guessing, but, based on this season, I should have flagged Lynn-Peavy tonight; Lynn won 1-0, with a game score of 81.

Whoah--Dickey's GS was 96 tonight.

sale v kershaw

Missed Verlander-Lynn tonight. Verlander's got an early lead. (Two weeks ago, Dickey was a punchline on the Marquee match-ups thread.)

1) David Price - Cole Hamels
2) overweight plodder - aging knuckleballer

I'll take door #2, Monty.

assuming I get in from Iowa on time, J0rdan and I should be seeing Sale vs Oswalt on the South Side Tuesday night.

Saw Volquez vs. Latos tonight - top notch.

will put on Yu v Sale now

well 4-3 in the 2nd, so much for that

Hamels v Sheets is close, but Cole's thrown more balls than strikes at this point.

trying to root for Philths this weekend, not easy

:O

Kershaw-Vogelsong should be good. I missed the obvious limitation of this thread when I opened it up: it's the same 12-15 names shuffled around.

Halladay-Hudson could go anywhere.

u forgot that the Philthies are in total punkass mode.

Which of the three words in "could go anywhere" didn't you read?

Hard to get a more statistically even match-up in the most basic columns than Bumgarner vs. Kershaw:

ERA -- 2.97 (B) / 2.90 (K)
IP -- 164 (B) / 171 (K)
H/9 -- 7.4 (B) / 6.9 (K)
K/BB -- 4.7 (B) / 3.9 (K)
W/L% -- .650 (B) / .647 (K)

And they have identical WHIPs of 1.014.

who wouldve thunk - david price vs.............luke hochevar

... and the mighty Royals come out on top!

Cueto/Miley = Cy Young/ROY?

It was a good matchup. Johnny Cueto pretty much did what he has done all year. Cueto is so much more efficient than he was in past years and seems to have another gear he can get into later in the game. He was filthy in his last inning which was the 7th.

Wade Miley pitched a pretty good game. He works really fast and throws strikes. I don't know if it is his motion, but there is something about his motion that seems to confuse hitters on where the pitch is going to be located. He got quite few swings and misses for a guy that tops out around 91-92. Really just gave up some singles and lost one run on an error by the D-back shortstop. Chris Welsh was impressed stating he reminded him quite a bit of former Red left-hander Tom Browning.

Verlander-Sale, a game separating their teams at the top; best match-up since Dickey-Sabathia a couple of months ago.

If you were watching the ESPN broadcast, you caught an amazing statistic: other teams are hitting .131 against Verlander after he passes 100 pitches. (Not that small a sample, either, seeing as he's exceeded 100 every start this year.)

Hell of a dugout tantrum from Sale. He looked psychopathic after he gave up that HR to Delmon Young.

Verlander-Sale again

Rained out

Verlander and Sale ended up crushing the Twins and Indians (no runs allowed by either) instead of facing each other ... too bad.

Verlander/Anderson (on ESPN tonight) qualifies, right?

The best starter in the NL is going tonight, if anyone's interested. vs. Josh Johnson, but still.

I had to think for 30 seconds on who Anderson is.

"Mister Anderson"

Darvish-Greinke in a few

Scherzer-Harvey on TV today.

Aargh--looking forward to Scherzer/Harvey/Cabrera all day, I've got the Red Sox-Dodgers instead. I guess the reasoning is that the Jays are actively pursuing the Red Sox for a divisional crown.

scherzer!

through four:

harvey 8 H, 2 K
scherzer 1 H, 8 K

two pretty good rookies about to get going, Fernandez vs. Teheran

Good call--lead story on cnnsi.com this morning.

http://mlb.si.com/2013/08/31/mariners-taijuan-walker-wins-debut/?sct=mlb_t11_a2

Didn't realize it was Scherzer-Sale tonight.

Cliff Lee vs. Kris Medlen right now is a real beauty. Scoreless, 3 hits total, 11 Ks for Lee and Medlen just gave up his first hit in the 6th.

Didn't see any of it, but certainly lived up to your advance billing. Skenes' ERA is just barely above 2.00.

When they put together next year's most-trade-value list, I imagine the two Baltimore guys will be at the top, but even being a pitcher, Skenes will surely follow closely.

pretty good battle between paul skenes and aaron civale right now. skenes is no-hitting the brewers and has 9 Ks through 4 innings, but some long at-bats mean he probably won't be in the game more than 6 innings even with the no-hitter. civale has been less dominant but more efficient and has 6 Ks and a shutout

Yeah, 86 pitches through five--amazing, nonetheless.

Into the 7th and they're leaving him in--surprised, especially with the Pirates up 1-0 now.

i don't know, he's been really efficient the last few innings, maybe they'll let him go

Wow, that was fast: 7 innings, no hits, 99 pitches.

They should really put someone else out for the 8th; if Skenes has a long inning, but still hasn't given up any hits, it becomes that much harder not to send him out for the 9th.

pepiot vs. skubal is a pretty good one going on right now

I'll be at Bello/Bowden Francis tonight...that's like 70% marquee at least.

gil vs skenes right now

ok never mind they’re taking skenes out early

Imagine buying a ticket to see Randy Johnson vs Greg Maddux, getting to the ballpark, and discovering that they've both been scratched. In place of them, the Dodgers and DBacks started a couple of nobodies. I won't spoil it, just watch the clip:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCSHgKCymsR/?igsh=MWFzbjNieWw3Nmx2MQ==

Yama vs. Skenes rn in Chavez Ravine

Not surprisingly, Skenes' (very good) ERA is 0.7 runs higher than his (excellent) FIP after last night, 2.39 vs. 1.70. He's giving up 6.2 H/9, has a K/BB ratio of 9.75, and has given up one HR in 38 innings.

I know the Dodgers are swooning hard but man Skenes made quick work of them and their ~$5T payroll.

Was also watching the Nats/Mets game last night and wondering what the Padres would be like if they hadn't traded Abrams, Wood, and Gore away for 1.3 seasons of Juan Soto.

good battle between tarik squbal and … ben brown??

Play-by-play from the god RICH WALTZ

I see the Tigers have the Pirates coming up in a couple of weeks. These two teams have to try to give us the marquee match-up everybody wants.

Maybe a chance at Skubal-Skenes? If the Tigers hold Skubal back till Wednesday (5 days rest), it would line up. But I don't know if both teams stick to a straight 4-days-rest rule, in which case they're a day out of sync.

Skubal Wednesday, Skenes on Thursday. Damn.

Which makes no sense to me. Skenes pitched five innings on the 13th, his usual 95 pitches--does he need five days rest?

Manfred, nows your time to shine

could have had skubal vs skenes today in the doubleheader, but one team or the other or both decided that skubal would start G1 and skenes G2

you can guess which one got a win

I know I shouldn't care, but makes me mad! Such a great opportunity to get people excited about the game. But baseball's idea of marketing itself seems to begin and end with hideous City Connect jerseys.

A few quotes about the missed opportunity:

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2025/06/19/tarik-skubal-paul-skenes-detroit-tigers-pittsburgh-pirates/84275172007/

And this great sentence, which I didn't write: "That said, it would have been a marquee matchup."

free match-up tomorrow: Skenes vs Les Misiorowski

skenes vs. joe ryan sort of counts, except it just took the latter 34 pitches to get through the first

Skenes and Skubal starting the ASG. That's why they couldn't let that happen last month--had to make sure they saved that for the ASG.

Yamamoto-Ray should qualify imo? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Yamamoto pitch live before (west coast team problems)

Most definitely marquee looking at their stats--didn't realize Robbie Ray was having such a good season.

Was at the game, Ray was cruising for the first 3 innings (22-23 pitches?) and then all the sudden in innings 4 & 5 he couldn't find the strikezone... you name it: wide, high, passed ball. 2 of the 3 SF all-stars made an appearance which was nice. LA won which was... not nice.

Counterpoint:

Gausman-Rodon, maybe. Gausman has been consistently mediocre as of late--Game Scores between 41-54 in seven of his last eight starts.

both guys that had an elite season in SF and then went straight to the AL East.

I'm a day late here, but SI's cover 50 years ago:

https://i.postimg.cc/DwNKhg7W/seaver.jpg

I'm not sure if they were ever matched up head-to-head; Seaver faced Cuellar twice in the '69 WS, and I think Palmer retired before Seaver moved over to the A.L. Those motions...would have been a fine marquee match-up.

Hah, amazing...They overlapped for one season, 1984; Palmer's last year, Seaver with the White Sox. Palmer barely pitched in '84--three starts, 17.2 IP for the season--but one of those starts was against Chicago, and, sure enough--wouldn't doubt that the two teams lined up their rotations so this would happen--Seaver was the opposing starter:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA198404230.shtml

Attendance: 16,939.

i feel like even back then that was very bad

That'd work out to somewhere between 1.3 and 1.4 million for the season, which probably would have been pretty good for the White Sox then (or most teams outside of NY/LA/Boston/Cubs). But considering the match-up, not much. I remember that part of the story that went with that cover was the rough seasons both Seaver and Palmer had in '74; both went on to win the Cy in '75. Palmer pitched 10 shutouts!

Okay--back to Skenes and Skubal and the marquee matchups of today.

Kershaw-Scherzer Friday night.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6531078/2025/08/06/clayton-kershaw-max-scherzer-rookie-meeting-diamondbacks-dodgers/?campaign=14496169&source=athletic_targeted_email&userId=3098904

(Probably paywalled, sorry.)

If you can't read it, here's the punchline of their first match-up as rookies in 2008: "Imagine going to the ballpark to see a game between Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson, but get disappointed they get scratched for a young Max Scherzer and a young Clayton Kershaw." That's who was bumped for them.

wheeler/skubal was a good one from a couple of days ago

Deinitely--in a world without Paul Skenes, probably the two Cy Young winners (although Sanchez leads the NL in bWAR).

As excited as I am about Scherzer/Kershaw, even if they're both sharp, they're basically five-inning pitchers now. It'd be a miracle if both--maybe even either--lasted into the 7th.

I'm hyping this enough to guarantee that they'll both be knocked out in the second inning:

https://www.mlb.com/news/clayton-kershaw-and-max-scherzer-historic-pitching-matchup

They've each gone 6+ in 3 of their 5 most recent starts! I am romantic enough to believe, seeing the other on the bump is enough to timewarp each individual to their prime selves for one final start

well, it wasn't a miracle but it wasn't 5 innings either. Max was pretty wild and did well to survive a turbulent 1st, did well to limit it to a mookie homerun (fingers crossed he's finally back to form). Kersh threw a typical 2025 start: mostly soft contact, not many strikeouts, lots of nasty breaking stuff outside the zone getting wiffs for a 2 strike weak contact grounder. Got BABIP'd for his 1 run but fair enough when you're working with an arsenal of soft stuff.

Considering where both Scherzer and Kershaw are in their careers, that game more than lived up to the hype.

They were both good. Between the HR and the line-drive DP, felt like the Jays got beat by Betts more than Kershaw--might have been 3-0 if Betts doesn't make that play. Of course, Schneider's catch bailed out Scherzer too.

I'll probably be miserable all day.

:(

Gray vs. Imanaga is scratching some itches.