Clayton Kershaw is the very best pitcher of the twenty first century. This a lot isn’t actually in dispute. A profession 2.48 ERA and a pair of.82 FIP over 16 years is unimpeachable. There’s three Cy Youngs to go along with it, and an MVP in 2014 when he had a 1.77 ERA and a 0.857 WHIP, which is past silly. He most likely ought to have one or two extra Cy Youngs, had the voters not gotten fascinated by the very concept of giving one to a knuckleball pitcher (R.A. Dickey on the east coast).
And Kershaw has been capable of reinvent himself a pair instances, first arriving with a piledriver fastball and a magic curveball, and ultimately shaping that curve into an unhittable slider and dealing round his diminishing velocity. These days at 35 he depends on location and guile, although the walks have ballooned.
Perhaps he ought to have been born about 20 years earlier.
Had Kershaw pitched through the restricted playoff system, with solely division winners and LCSs and World Series to fret about, what he did within the postseason could be one thing of a footnote. Had he pitched earlier than the Dodgers grew to become a monopoly of the NL West, he most likely wouldn’t have that many postseason begins to even take into account.
But he didn’t, he wasn’t, and he is right here now. And Kershaw getting paddled round within the postseason is, sadly, going to be simply as prevalent of a picture of his profession as all these common season begins when nobody may contact him.
Kershaw gave up 5 runs final evening earlier than he bought an out towards Arizona. He gave up six in complete earlier than being eliminated with only one/twenty seventh of the outs required on the board. It places yet one more stellar Dodgers season up towards it, as they’ll have to search out two wins in three begins from Arizona’s high two starters of Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly (who bought the win final evening). And the Dodgers don’t actually have any trusted starters behind Kershaw. They’ll be making it up as they go along with Bobby Miller, Ryan Pepiot, and Lance Lynn most likely solely going as soon as by way of a lineup after which a military of relievers. Maybe Kershaw did them a favor in getting overwhelmed so badly that they didn’t actually must go to any of their high relievers, who’ll get a bonus day of relaxation at this time.
It’s not that there haven’t been sensible Kershaw begins in October. There’s been a quantity of them. 10, in actual fact, of begins the place he went greater than six inning and gave up lower than three runs, going past the definition of a high quality begin.
But he’s additionally been shelled equally. Eight begins the place he’s given up 5 runs or extra (although one was that notorious Game 5 in Houston when the Astros, by some miracle, by no means swung and missed at any of his breaking pitches). Sure, there’s been his heavy utilization by Dave Roberts, happening quick relaxation or popping out of the pen or typically each. But the runs given up are the runs given up by now.
Kershaw is a sufferer of how baseball is seen now as properly. With the Dodgers turning the common season into one thing of a procession, and the expanded playoffs making it simpler to take action, the postseason is weighted extra. Nothing actually issues till October, not less than for groups just like the Dodgers or Astros or Atlanta now. That’s how MLB desires it. It’s the NBA-ification of the league, regardless of being a totally totally different sport.
Kershaw will at all times run up towards the picture of Justin Verlander, who is his solely competitors of pitcher of this century. We have photos of Verlander profitable collection for the Tigers on his personal (often towards the A’s). He has two rings from regular World Series, not the one-in-a-can that was 2020. Verlander’s numbers aren’t actually that a lot better within the postseason. He’s bought a 5.64 ERA in 9 World Series begins. Kershaw’s is 4.46. But Verlander has been sensible, for essentially the most part, within the Division Series and the ALCS (2.86 and three.01 ERA).
What’s unusual about Kershaw’s playoff foibles is the peripheral numbers aren’t all that totally different. He strikes out 27.6 p.c of the hitters within the common season, and 27 p.c within the postseason. 6.3 and 6.5 p.c are his stroll charges. WHIP is 1.00 within the common season, and 1.11 within the postseason.
What adjustments is how usually the runners he lets on rating. He leaves 79.6 p.c of them on base within the common season. That plummets to 66.3 in October. He will get eaten by sequencing, and sequencing towards the very best hitters locked in to their highest diploma.
But these numbers received’t erase the blemish. If the Dodgers exit at this stage to a fairly middling Diamondbacks group, and this is Kershaw’s final season, and the Dodgers solely have that one half- or quarter-World Series win for his or her decade of placing tire tracks on the NL West and the National League as an entire, the lasting picture shall be all of the instances Kershaw appeared behind him within the playoffs to see a baseball touchdown someplace the place a teammate wasn’t. There are not any caveats, or buts, or exceptions anymore.
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