For one October night, Kershaw validated all of his greatness

When he's working as he did Tuesday night, methodically and breezily in his home state of Texas, it's easy to forget Clayton Kershaw is the most star-crossed character of the past decade of Octobers, and maybe going back decades before. He'll sling a slider up there, and then another, and the hitters flail, and you just think of him as a master craftsman at the height of his powers. Take away all those ulcer-inducing moments from years past and what remains is art and athleticism, again and again and again.

“You can appreciate and totally see why he's heading to the Hall of Fame one day,” Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash said, “when he's done.”

Which he's not. The scars are there, maybe hidden under Kershaw's beard. This World Series is unique and all, played at a neutral site as a nod to the novel coronavirus pandemic. But whether it's Dodger Stadium or Globe Life Field, Kershaw is an October constant. No figure here is worthy of more attention, more fascination, more sympathy — all of it.

The Los Angeles Dodgers may not win this World Series, and Kershaw may still have an opportunity to undo the ungodly good he did Tuesday night, when he mastered the Rays for six rocking-chair innings of a resounding 8-3 victory in Game 1 in which he allowed just two hits, struck out eight and needed all of 78 pitches.

“We know it's just one,” Kershaw said. It didn' t sound cliché. It sounded sage. Even scarred.

The most mesmerizing player here is Mookie Betts, the Dodgers' right fielder, whose sixth-inning homer was his second-best play of the night — outdone by an instinctive, crack-of-the-bat scamper home on an infield grounder, the play that gave birth to the Dodgers' fourrun fifth. And yet Betts — a World Series champion when he helped the Boston Red Sox beat the Dodgers in 2018 who is pursuing the same prize in the opposite uniform now — can't rival Kershaw for October memories, so many of them painful. Not just for him. Merely to watch.

And yet, here he is, trying again.

“It's hard not to think about winning,” Kershaw said. “It's hard not to think about what that might feel like.”

Easy, now. The list and the examples of gut punches can come later, because they're still pertinent even as he's trying to push past them. Either way, know Kershaw is one of the reasons

MLB needed the Dodgers to get here. The Atlanta Braves, vanquished in a stellar National League Championship Series, have one of the game's most electric young players in Ronald Acuña Jr. and seemingly all kinds of staying power to make October runs in years to come. But they don't have a figure anywhere near as compelling as Kershaw. No one else in the sport does.

The stats to build the case for Kershaw as an October choker are right there: His ERA in 357 regular season appearances is 2.43, and his ERA in 35 post-season games before Tuesday was 4.31. Dig further, and there are more oddities. In 354 regular season starts, he has allowed five or more earned runs 24 times — fewer than twice a season, less than 7 per cent of his outings. In 29 post-season starts, he has given up at least five six times — more than once every five starts.

Flip that stat another way: In 11 post-season starts — including his one-run outing Tuesday — Kershaw has allowed either zero or one earned runs. That's more than once every three times out, which sounds pretty darned good. Consider, though, over the course of his career, he has done that 179 times in the regular season — almost exactly half his starts — and you get an idea not only how extraordinary he is as a pitcher but how much more ordinary he has been come October.

Still, labelling Kershaw an October bust is far too easy, far too simplistic. It's not all bad, even if it somehow all leads to heartache. Shoot, earlier this month, he opened his post-season with eight three-hit, 13-strikeout, scoreless innings against Milwaukee. He began the 2018 playoffs by two-hitting Atlanta for eight innings. He shoved against the Chicago Cubs in Game 2 of the 2016 NLCS (seven two-hit innings), against the New York Mets in the division series the year before (seven threehit innings). He has finished off series in relief, most notably the 2016 NLDS at Nationals Park, when he got Daniel Murphy — at the time, one of the most dangerous hitters alive — to pop up with the tying run on second.

So he is not full-on allergic to October. And yet Tuesday night, after he battled his slider in the first inning and mastered it thereafter, he sounded positively gleeful merely to take to the stage — site of all those tragedies — again.

“So much gratitude,” he said. “Just so thankful. It's just — it's incredible. Nothing is deserved in this game.”

Nothing, maybe, except Clayton Kershaw winning a World Series. He is, for now, defined by what's behind. He could forever be defined by what's ahead.

ROB CARR / GETTY IMAGES After much post-season heartache during his brilliant career, Los Angeles Dodgers veteran ace Clayton Kershaw was able to put his Game 1 performance in perspective on Tuesday night. “We know it's just one,” Kershaw said.