The Nationals’ ace can often mow through right-handed hitters with just a good fastball and his slider, but relies far more on his curveball and change-up against lefties. Scherzer used his slider about 20 percent of the time this season. He hardly threw any of them in Game 1. He threw his curveball and change-up nearly twice as often as usual, according to BrooksBaseball, which does not separate Scherzer’s cutter from his other fastballs. Scherzer added that pitch before the 2015 season to help him against lefties.

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Whatever combination of fastballs he used in Game 1, the Dodgers swung through a lower percentage of them than all but a handful of teams did this season. Scherzer’s best games come when he is getting swings and misses on that fastball.

2. Trea Turner and Rich Hill’s curveball

Everyone knows Rich Hill will throw curveballs. He threw them 42.4 percent of the time this season, more frequently than any starter in baseball who threw at least 100 innings.

Most of Major League Baseball seems to know that Trea Turner is struggling with breaking balls — at least compared to the regularity with which he hits fastballs — and the Dodgers have pitched him accordingly. Turner struck out twice in Game 2 and 10 times in 17 at-bats overall. Most of the strikeouts came when he did not get a fastball to hit or did not hit the fastball he got. Most of his six hits came when the Dodgers threw him a fastball, like the few he jumped on against Clayton Kershaw in Game 4.

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“[Kershaw] and Rich Hill both get a lot of downward action on that curveball,” Turner said. “You see it fine and you think it’s going to get there, and it kind of never does, and if it does, it’s going down pretty hard. So it’s just a matter of making sure you’re in a good spot and seeing it up in the zone, because if it’s down in the zone, it’s going to be pretty tough to hit.”

3. Who will catch Scherzer?

The idea coming into this series was that rookie Pedro Severino would start against the vaunted Dodgers left-handers, while Jose Lobaton would start against the righties. Then, Dusty Baker started Lobaton — seemingly, at least in part, on a hunch, after Severino contributed in Game 1 — and Lobaton hit the three-run homer that gave the Nationals that game.

Scherzer is known to dictate his own game plan more than most and will therefore be less affected by who is calling the game than others. But Scherzer has praised Lobaton’s framing all season, and in need of key strikes in tight spaces against that left-handed Dodgers lineup, perhaps Baker will opt for that aspect of Lobaton’s game. Perhaps not.

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4. Fresh bullpen



If, for some reason, Scherzer does not last, the Nationals should have three rested left-handers in their bullpen. The day off helps the Dodgers, too. Their bullpen, like the Nationals, was exhausted and will now be fresh, with starter Julio Urias available for long relief should Hill struggle early. But if Scherzer goes deep, the Nationals would have enough left-handed firepower ahead of closer Mark Melancon to match up the rest of the way.

There is also the possibility of Tanner Roark, who is on three days’ rest and, though no one has confirmed he would be available out of the bullpen in a worst-case scenario, the Nationals would have no reason to preserve him in a game like this. Reynaldo Lopez, who threw two innings Tuesday, said he would feel ready to come out of the bullpen if the Nationals needed him again Thursday, too. In other words, like the Dodgers, the Nationals will have their full relief corps available Thursday. Unlike the Dodgers, they will have their ace on the mound.

5. Dusty’s destiny

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Dusty Baker’s teams have lost eight straight playoff games in which his team would have advanced with a win, the longest streak in history according to ESPN Stats and Info. The last time his team moved on was the 2003 National League Division Series, when his Cubs beat the Braves in Game 5 to advance to that now-infamous NLCS. He has been disappointed since.