How the Nationals Outsmarted Paul Goldschmidt in the NLCS
The NLCS had a weird feel to it from the get go. The Nationals’ pitching was stupendous, balls hit off the bat that sounded like towering home runs were dying on the warning track, and of course, the Cardinals bats never woke up. This was a bit unexpected considering the club’s monster first inning in Atlanta during game 5 of the NLDS. We were all waiting for the Cardinals offense to appear, but it never showed up, as they only scored six runs in a four-game sweep by the Nationals.
Nobody could seem to get anything going offensively. Instead of searching for answers for all the Cardinal batters, let’s just look at one. While Paul Goldschmidt had his worst season offensively with a .346 wOBA, he is still the thunder in the St. Louis lineup. How exactly did the Nationals pitch to Goldschmidt, and why couldn’t he succeed in the series?
On one hand, the Nationals pitchers were outstanding. They were putting pitches right on the edge of the plate and mixing their pitch selection well. When you have Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Patrick Corbin in your starting rotation, your opponent is going to have a difficult time. Additionally, Anibal Sanchez had a great game. Meanwhile, Goldschmidt went 1-for-16 with nine strikeouts in the series. He did seem to experience a little bit of bad luck with a few hard hit balls. In Game 4, he hit a ball 101.4 mph that went 340 feet, and he had another two hard-hit outs in Game 2. One traveled 316 feet that was hit 95.9 mph off the bat, and another traveled 284 feet that was hit 108.1 mph. That may not make him feel tons better about his performance given the nine strikeouts.
It is not surprising that Anibal Sanchez was able to succeed in his three times facing Goldschmidt in Game 1. Sanchez used the cutter and sinker well in that game. While his sinker generated an unimpressive .387 wOBA this year, his cutter was lethal with a .260 wOBA. Goldschmidt had a .350 wOBA against sinkers and a .317 wOBA against cutters. Those numbers are going to add to some underwhelming results. Sanchez utilized the sinker and cutter well and put them in difficult locations against Goldschmidt. During the second at-bat, Sanchez generated similar results. Read the rest of this entry »