By now you have undoubtedly heard a number of opinions, comments, debates, discussions and complaints in favor of or opposed to Dodgers manager Don Mattingly pulling Clayton Kershaw with two outs in the top of the seventh inning after his star left-hander had walked the bases loaded. And while there is no denying that the defending NL MVP and Cy Young award winner was running out of gas, Mattingly’s decision to bring in right-hander Pedro Baez may not have been a wise one – at least if you are a big fan of statistics.

It’s impossible to forget that it was Baez who coughed up a two-run home run to Cardinals slugger Matt Holliday when Mattingly brought him in to replace Kershaw in the seventh inning of Game-1 of last year’s NLDS, so there’s that history that was perhaps overlooked by Mattingly and pitching coach Rick Honeycutt. But the glaring stat that seemingly went unnoticed by the dugout brain trust is that Clayton Kershaw basically owns Mets slugger David Wright, who hit a devastating two-RBI single up the middle off of Baez to put Friday night’s game out of reach for the Dodgers.

We will never know if Kershaw’s career dominance of Mets third baseman David Wright would have led to a different outcome in Friday night’s NLDS opener. (Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

Kershaw has faced Wright a total of 18 times over the past eight seasons, during which Wright is 3 for 14 (.214) with four walks, two strikeouts with one RBI. He has yet to have even one extra base hit off of Kershaw. And while Kershaw was at the 113-pitch mark when Mattingly opted to remove him in favor of Baez, one has to believe that the hard-throwing left-hander – who has clearly had David Wright’s number over the years – might have been the better choice over Baez, against whom Wright had never faced.

But alas, the opinions, comments, debates, discussions and complaints in favor of or opposed to Mattingly pulling Kershaw will undoubtedly continue and we will never know what might have happened had Mattingly gone with the numbers over his scarred memory of what has happened to his ace in his last (now) four postseason appearances. But what we do know is that the Dodgers are once again in a 1-0 hole going into Game-2 of the NLDS.

Oh, in case you were wondering, David Wright is 1 for 3 with a double against Greinke. He struck out and grounded into a double play in his other two at-bats against him.

Just saying.