World Series: Scherzer vs. Cole and the best matchups ever
By Bill Felber
Where the Game 1 collision of Washington and Houston aces ranks among the best World Series pitching matchups in history
The buildup to Tuesday’s World Series game 1 pitching matchup between Houston’s Gerrit Cole and Washington’s Max Scherzer justifiably heralded it as one of the best duels in World Series history.
Cole entered the game on the heels of a 2019 season in which he established himself as among the game’s top pitchers. He went 20-5 with a league-leading 2.50 earned run average, which translates to a league-best 185 ERA+. ERA+ is a statistic that contextualizes a pitcher’s performance against the performances of his fellow pitchers on a scale where 100 equals the league average. In simple terms, that meant that Cole performed 85 percent more effectively than the average American League pitcher.
Scherzer’s numbers were nearly as good. Although compiling just an 11-7 record in 27 starts for the Nationals, he delivered a 2.92 earned run average and produced a 157 ERA+.
That made the combined ERA+ of Cole and Scherzer 342, among the highest combined totals of any two matchups in the 116-year history of the World Series.
It does not, however, crack the list of the 10 best matchups of all-time, falling just nine points short of that distinction.
That list of the 10 best matchups spans all of World Series history, beginning with the event’s earliest days and continuing right up through the 2018 Series. It contains many names casual fans will be familiar with, although they may also be struck by some of the names not on the list.
For example, although there is a Dodger left-hander on the list, it’s not Sandy Koufax. That’s because as dominant as Koufax was in his seven World Series starts, he was never pitted against a pitching opponent whose skills rivaled his own. The best Koufax vs. Somebody matchups occurred in 1963 (against New York’s Whitey Ford) and 1966 (against Baltimore’s Jim Palmer), each reaching only a combined ERA+ of 288.
Based on combined ERA+ of the starters, here are the 10 best pitching matchups in World Series history.