Among the reasons to like baseball is the Awesome People Hanging Out Together aspect of it. I could watch Clayton Kershaw pitch all day, I could watch Anthony Rizzo hit forever, and guess what, folks: Watch just a little bit of baseball and eventually youll get to see them do those things just 60 feet away from each other.As the Cubs and Dodgers prepare for Game 6, the matchup between Rizzo and Kershaw looms large. For an example of how crucial ace pitcher/star slugger matchups can be, look back no further than Sunday. In three plate appearances, Rizzo and Kershaw demonstrated the tiny margins between being and beating the best. Those three seem worth reviewing in detail.Deep background: Clayton Kershaw and Anthony Rizzo are, to their respective franchises, more than just a couple of superstars. Each was acquired at a particularly pivotal moment for the club, each was a target of particular interest for the club and each seems like a peach.The Dodgers won only 71 games in 2005, producing the second-worst winning percentage since the club moved to Los Angeles. Manager Jim Tracy was fired, general manager Paul DePodesta was fired, and in June 2006 the new GM Ned Colletti was leading his first draft with the organization. As the story goes, the Dodgers liked Kershaw a lot -- he was one of the top two names on their draft board -- but they didnt think hed fall to them with the seventh overall pick. They got help when the Royals used the first overall pick on Luke Hochevar -- a pitcher who was only available because the Dodgers had drafted and failed to sign him after a contentious negotiation the year before. That bumped every other pitcher down a spot in the draft, and Kershaw -- who had pitched poorly in his final start with teams top scouts in attendance -- landed with the Dodgers. If not Kershaw, scouting director Logan White said later, the Dodgers likely would have taken Tyler Colvin instead.The Cubs won only 71 games in 2011, continuing a three-year tumble from a 97-win season in 2008. Manager Mike Quade was fired, GM Jim Hendry was fired, and in October, Jed Hoyer, the Padres GM, and Theo Epstein, the Red Sox GM, were recruited to fix the franchise. One of their first moves (besides trading Tyler Colvin to the Rockies) was acquiring Rizzo for top starting pitching prospect Andrew Cashner. It made sense: Hoyer and Epstein had drafted Rizzo when they were both with the Red Sox, and Hoyer traded for him (in the Adrian Gonzalez deal) less than two months after taking the San Diego job. Rizzos awful rookie season with the Padres -- he hit .141 with a single home run in 153 plate appearances -- had muted the hype around him, and given the extraordinary offensive demands on first basemen, the trade remained difficult to judge for years afterward.Only Travis Wood, acquired by Hoyer and Epstein a month earlier, has been on the Cubs major league roster longer than Rizzo. Only Andre Ethier has been on the Dodgers longer than Kershaw. Rizzo has been (by wOBA) the fifth-best hitter in baseball over the past three years, tied with David Ortiz and just ahead of Bryce Harper and Kris Bryant. He has crossed over into Hall-of-Fame-likely territory. Kershaw, of course, could step in a bear trap this winter and still make it into Cooperstown easily, 10-year minimum or no.Medium Background: Kershaw and Rizzo had faced each other 12 times before this series, not including spring training. (The first time they met, in spring training, is a bit interesting: Rizzo went 4-for-5 in a Cactus League game, but in his first exposure to Kershaw he struck out on three pitches.)In 2012, Rizzo went 0-for-3 with a strikeout and two weak groundouts. Hes a much better hitter now -- though Kershaw is probably a much better pitcher, as well -- and since 2014 hes 3-for-8 with a homer, a double and two strikeouts. Among left-handed hitters with at least four plate appearances against Kershaw since 2014, Rizzos 1.319 OPS against the ace is the best in baseball. These sorts of matchup stats are almost always meaningless due to sample size limitations, but, hey, Villefort only put Edmond Dantès in prison once. Even small samples can justify a grudge.Now to the present.First plate appearance: First inning.Kershaw has retired the first two Cubs in a scoreless game. He and Rizzo are both battling the narrative monsters, as Rizzo is 1-for-20 in this postseason (after hitting .188 in the 2015 playoffs) and Kershaw allowed eight runs in the NLDS (and a 5.12 ERA in 51 playoff innings before that).His first pitch to Rizzo is a fastball on the inner third of the plate and in the lower third of the zone.A little history: On Sept. 19, 2014, Kershaw hit Rizzo with a pitch, as 64 other pitchers have done. Like many of the other 64, Kershaw learned that he wouldnt have to miss by much to hand Rizzo a free base:In his career, Kershaw has thrown nearly 2,000 pitches further inside than that one, and only 26 hit the batter. So, what lesson might he have learned? Up to that pitch, he had thrown Rizzo 14 pitches, and five were on the inner half of the plate (or inside). After that pitch (but before Game 2), he threw Rizzo 25 pitches, and only two were on the inside half. This is common -- most lefties work Rizzo away, with about twice as many pitches on the outer half or outside than on the inner half or inside -- but its also plays into Rizzos game. His power is mostly on the outer half of the plate, especially against lefties throwing fastballs:To start the first at-bat in Game 2, though, Kershaw goes inside with the pitch, hitting Yasmani Grandals inside target. Rizzo takes a huge cut, fouling a popup back and out of play. The size of his swing pulls him across home plate and into the right-handed batters box, and as Kershaw follows the flight of the ball Rizzo shoots a brief glance at the pitcher.Its worth mentioning, probably, that Rizzo does not take many strikes from Kershaw. The first time Rizzo saw him in a regular season game, back in 2012, he swung at the first pitch he saw and fouled it off. The second time he saw him in that game, he swung at the first pitch he saw and fouled that one off, too. The third time he faced him that day, he swung at the first pitch he saw and grounded out. In a total of 15 plate appearances against Kershaw, Rizzo has taken only seven called strikes. If youre going to sit back and be 0-2 right away, if thats the case, youve got to hit, Rizzo would say after this game.Now ahead 0-1, Kershaw gets the same target -- inside --but leaves his pitch in the middle of the strike zone.This is, surprisingly, not Rizzos power zone -- on all pitches from all pitchers, he actually slugs lower in the center square of the zone than anywhere except up and in -- and pitches down the middle are, surprisingly, one of Clayton Kershaws strengths. Still, Rizzo is frustrated as he pops the pitch into shallow center field. Its a sluggers pop-up -- I clock it at 6.87 seconds, which is almost crazy -- and Rizzo snaps his bat to the ground as he turns out of the box. It never feels OK to just miss a fastball down the middle.Kershaw is perfect through one inning, and Rizzo is 1-for-21.Second Plate Appearance: Fourth Inning.Rizzo again bats with two outs, and Kershaw still hasnt allowed a baserunner in the game. The Cubs are now trailing by a run.Kershaws first pitch is yet another fastball at yet another inside target. He is apparently more concerned about staying away from Rizzos slugging zones than he is about clipping Rizzos elbow again, especially with two outs. He misses low with the pitch, and its 1-0.Kershaw didnt face the Cubs this year, so the last time Rizzo saw him was on Aug. 28, 2015. He homered in that game, and I count four good reasons for us to watch that at-bat right now:1. We see on 1-0 what happens when Rizzo, in a hitters count, gets a fastball in the zone from Kershaw: He takes one of the biggest swings youll ever see, just misses it, and appears to injure both the catcher and the umpire with the effort. The pitch is about one and a quarter inches from the middle of the strike zone.2. We see on the next pitch what happens when Kershaw throws him a curveball hes not looking for: He bails as badly as any other left-handed hitter would.3. We hear Vin Scully calling the at-bat. Remember how great Vin Scully was? Why would we ever pass up the chance to hear that again?4. We eventually see Rizzo hit his second-longest home run during the Statcast era, with his 27th-hardest exit velocity overall.Up until that plate appearance, Kershaw worked Rizzo mainly up in the zone, at least with his fastball. Here are the locations of all the fastballs he threw to Rizzo before Aug. 28, 2015:With the homer, Rizzo proved he could catch up to that pitch.In Rizzos next plate appearance that game -- the last matchup between these two before this LCS -- Kershaw worked down with the fastball and struck Rizzo out with a slider.To this point in Game 2, Kershaw has stayed with that -- low fastball targets, no