PHILADELPHIA — As Clayton Kershaw accomplished his pregame routine the opposite day and walked off the sphere at Residents Financial institution Park, I requested him about his postseason debut. That was 17 years and 39 playoff appearances in the past, and but Kershaw remembered it so effectively that he acquired his reply out earlier than I acquired all of my query out.
“I used to be within the ‘pen,” Kershaw said. “Here.”
The pitching staff of the 2008 Dodgers featured two Hall of Famers: Kershaw, in his first year, and Greg Maddux, in his last year.
When the Dodgers faced the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League Championship Series, Derek Lowe, Hiroki Kuroda and Chad Billingsley made the cut as starters. Kershaw and Maddux did not.
“He and I were both kind of the long guys down there,” Kershaw said. “It’s loopy, form of the similarities.
“The place I’m now’s form of the place he was. It’s fairly cool.”
For nearly each participant, baseball tells you when your profession is over. Maddux, for all his accolades, was no exception.
In every of his final 5 seasons, his earned-run common was above 4.00, at the same time as he pitched not less than 194 innings in every of them. In his final stint with the Dodgers — seven begins on the finish of the 2008 season — his ERA was 5.09.
Maddux knew that postseason could be the top for him. He simply didn’t inform anybody.
Greg Maddux pitches for the Dodgers towards the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium on Sept. 19, 2008.
(Lisa Blumenfeld / Getty Pictures)
In his final outing — within the recreation wherein the Phillies eradicated the Dodgers — Maddux was considered one of six Dodgers relievers. He labored the fourth and fifth innings, left the mound with the Dodgers down by 5 runs, and quietly requested the plate umpire for a baseball on his means out.
“I’ve got the ball in my room somewhere,” Maddux informed The Occasions in 2014. “It kind of stunk that we lost. But I knew it was the last time I was going to put on a uniform. I was privileged to wear it for as long as I did.”
Kershaw is the uncommon participant that has informed baseball when his profession is over. He introduced his retirement final month, efficient on the finish of the season, at the same time as he’s nonetheless mighty efficient.
His .846 profitable share would have led the main leagues, had he thrown one other 50 innings. He nonetheless threw extra innings than anybody on the Dodgers besides Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and his 3.36 ERA was his third-worst in a full season. In his last begin, he shut out the American League West champion Seattle Mariners into the sixth inning.
In a standard 12 months for the Dodgers, Kershaw could be beginning within the playoffs, as a result of a standard 12 months for the Dodgers means scooping up a bunch of gifted pitchers with histories of harm and questions of sturdiness, then crossing their fingers and hoping just a few are wholesome and efficient come playoff time.
Final October, the Dodgers ran brief: Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty, Walker Buehler and 4 bullpen video games. This October, virtually miraculously, the Dodgers have 5 accessible starters with an ERA higher than Kershaw: Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow and Emmet Sheehan.
Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, admitted to some trepidation at telling a Corridor of Famer that he could be sure for the postseason bullpen.
“But, to Kersh’s credit, he cuts off that timidness in a way by saying, ‘Hey, I’m here to win, whatever it takes,’” Friedman mentioned. “He’s loved watching these guys compete. Obviously he’s done really well this year as well.
“Usually, when a guy’s on his way out, it’s like, ‘OK, it’s time.’ You can kind of see it. The performance really backs up. That’s not the case with Kersh. He was a big part of the success we had this year. But to his credit, he cut it off really early and just said, ‘Hey, I just want to be part of this and help this team win, whatever way I can.’ And so he helped make that conversation way easier.”
Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw celebrates after getting San Francisco’s Jerar Encarnacion to hit right into a double play at Dodger Stadium on Sept. 19.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Occasions)
If Kershaw works 4 innings this October, he’ll cross Maddux for sixth place on the all-time listing of postseason innings pitched. If he pitches 5⅔ innings, he’ll turn out to be the fifth pitcher to throw 200 postseason innings, becoming a member of Andy Pettitte, Justin Verlander, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz.
Sooner or later, followers will flip over Kershaw’s baseball card — or, extra probably, search for his Baseball Reference web page — and be taught that the best starter of his technology completed his profession in reduction.
A curiosity, in any case, I steered. Kershaw shrugged.
“The postseason is just its own separate thing,” he mentioned. “You just do whatever you can. Where our team is at with our starters, it makes sense.
“I guess it’s weird, but it’s part of it.”
In his postseason debut right here in 2008, Kershaw retired the primary 5 batters, not unhealthy when 4 of them have been named Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. In his finale in that 2008 NLCS, Maddux acquired the final man he confronted to floor out: Cole Hamels — within the outdated days, when pitchers used to bat.
Kershaw may not throw one other pitch; the Dodgers have made no dedication to make use of him on this spherical, or to maintain him on the roster in the event that they advance past then.
On Sunday, I requested Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts whether or not Kershaw was right here solely in case a starter exited in a rush or a recreation went into additional innings.
“I trust him,” Roberts mentioned. “I think there’s other opportunities he might have to pitch. But I also do feel that there’s other guys, whether it’s lanes or spots, that I feel we’re more comfortable with.
“It’s not a slight on Clayton, but I do think that there’s various roles — up, down, early, late — that I could use him.”
The Dodgers are utilizing starters wherever they will: beginning, relieving, closing. Given the anxiety-inducing state of the Dodgers bullpen, the notion that they may not have the ability to discover a spot to make use of Kershaw leaves just one query: Severely?
