First pitch: Wednesday, 10:10 p.m. ET
Line: Los Angeles -245, San Francisco +225, Total: 6

One of the biggest rivalries in baseball closes its regular-season series on Wednesday night when the Giants visit Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers.

The Giants are just one win (or Brewers loss) away from clinching a spot in the playoffs despite going 3-7 over their past 10 games. Their offense has been horrible, scoring a mere 2.1 runs per game over that time while getting all of their offense in Tuesday’s 4-2 loss off a two-run homer from starter Madison Bumgarner. C Buster Posey (.310 BA) has a hit in eight of the past 10 games in which he is 11-for-36 (.306) with a homer and 3 RBI. Los Angeles is looking like the team everyone expected it to be with a league-high $238.8 million payroll, as the club has rattled off a victory in 13-of-21 September contests and need just one more win to clinch the NL West division. The Dodgers made their six hits on Tuesday count with three leaving the park, as starter Zack Greinke put up another great effort (8 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 5 K's). Veteran RHP Tim Hudson (9-12, 3.52 ERA) will get the start for San Francisco and has a near impossible task of outdueling the best pitcher in baseball, LHP Clayton Kershaw (20-3, 1.80 ERA). When on the road, the Giants have gone 43-37 (.538) this year, while the Dodgers upped their home record to 41-36 (.532) after Tuesday’s victory. Over the past three seasons, San Francisco has played well against L.A. with a 30-25 record (.545) overall while the two clubs have split their 18 games (9-9) in 2014. In that time, the Giants are an impressive 6-3 when traveling to Los Angeles. Trends show that San Francisco is 18-6 (.750) when playing on Wednesdays this season, while the Dodgers are an impressive 22-4 (.846) in games started by Kershaw in 2014. On the injury front, OF Angel Pagan (back) just had season-ending surgery while OF Michael Morse (oblique) is expected to miss this contest for the visiting Giants. Meanwhile, L.A. has no offensive players expected to be absent in this game.

Tim Hudson has continued to be effective despite being 39 years old, and has posted a sub-4.00 ERA in each season since 2007. He has actually recorded his best walk rate this year (1.6 BB/9) while having his usual low strikeouts (5.7 K/9) and has forced batters to hit groundballs 53.3% of the time. Hudson has struggled over his past four starts though, going 0-3 while allowing 20 runs (18 ER) in 16.1 frames. Since June 5, Hudson has actually earned only two wins while the Giants are 6-8 in those outings. Against the Dodgers in his career, he is 6-5 (10-6 team record) with a 3.98 ERA and 1.33 WHIP, and was tagged for six runs on eight hits over one inning the last time he faced them on Sept. 13. OF Yasiel Puig (4-for-8, 1 HR), OF Matt Kemp (7-for-19, 1 HR, 3 RBI) and 1B Adrian Gonzalez (10-for-24, 2 HR, 5 RBI) have had no trouble when hitting against Hudson in the past, while 3B Justin Turner is a meager 2-for-12 against him. The phenomenal bullpen for the Giants has gone 29-14 (.674) this year with a 2.98 ERA and 1.07 WHIP, and has been successful in saving 44-of-61 (72%) games. Santiago Casilla (1.76 ERA, 17 saves) has four blown saves on the year while benefitting from opposing offenses hitting .218 BABIP against him.

There is no arguing whether or not Clayton Kershaw is the best starting pitcher in the majors as he has a sub-3.00 ERA each of the past six seasons and so far in 2014 has a career-best 1.80 ERA. He is also striking out batters at the best rate of his career (10.8 K/9) and rarely walks anybody (1.5 BB/9) while allowing nine homers over his 190.1 frames (0.43 HR/9). Kershaw has left a tremendous amount of runners on base (81.4%) and has seen batters swing at 37% of his pitchers out of the zone while making contact with those balls a woeful 55% of the time. The left-hander has come away with the win in eight of his past 10 starts and has allowed more than three earned runs just once on the year. The Giants are not looking forward to seeing Kershaw as he is 13-5 (15-9 team record) with a 1.45 ERA and 0.81 WHIP against them, and has allowed more than three earned runs just once in that time. No player on the Giants has really done well against Kershaw in their careers as they have combined to hit .204 in 353 at-bats while striking out 23% of the time. C Buster Posey (11-for-56, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 11 K's), OF Hunter Pence (4-for-49, 11 K's) and 1B Brandon Belt (3-for-27, 13 K's) have done particularly poorly in the matchup. Los Angeles’ bullpen is 16-24 (.400) in 2014 with a 3.78 ERA and 1.32 WHIP, while going 46-for-59 (78%) in save chances. Closer Kenley Jansen (2.84 ERA, 43 saves) has mowed down 14.1 batters per nine innings in 2014 while blowing five saves on the year.