Kershaw’s otherworldly abilities on full display
Gather ’round, children, and let me tell you about the time Clayton Kershaw threw three times in six days and brought his Los Angeles Dodgers within shouting distance of their first National League pennant in almost 30 years.
Doesn’t it sound like something out of the distant past, a reference in a Bill James Historical Baseball
Abstract about how much pitcher usage has changed?
Perhaps this is what was necessary to combat the unfortunate conversation around Kershaw throughout his career before this October. A few starts, on normal rest, might not have been enough to force critics to see past the problems he encountered in a few postseason outings — a few innings in a few postseason outings, really — and appreciate the greatest pitcher of our age.
But what Kershaw did moved beyond the recent breadth of experience for the very best pitchers in October, into the realm of the cinematic.
Consider the least impressive of Kershaw’s trio of outings in a six-day span, the Game 4 performance against the Washington Nationals in the National League Division Series. Kershaw struck out 11, walked two, pitched into the seventh inning and remained on the mound for five batters in that inning.
The reason he did all this is something that speaks to a combination of factors. Multiple managers have taken Dodgers teams into October without much confidence in the relievers that serve as a bridge from the starters to Kenley Jansen. Dave Roberts really took this to a logical extreme in Game 5, essentially deciding to deploy Jansen as he saw Terry Francona pitch Keith Foulke in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.
But there’s another aspect to this: How can anyone imagine there’s a better alternative than Kershaw to put on the mound in a big spot? Even a fatigued Kershaw.
Look at Kershaw’s résumé. From 2011 through 2015, he won an MVP and three Cy Young awards. The other two years? He finished second and third in the Cy Young voting. He won four ERA titles and three strikeout crowns.
And in 2016, though his overall totals were diminished by the time he missed with a back injury, he managed to outdo his previous form, suggesting, in a frightening prospect for opponents, that 28-year-old Kershaw might be getting better.
What this new ceiling might be is hard to fathom. Through age 28, Kershaw has pitched 1,760 innings in the regular season, striking out 9.8 batters per nine innings and pitching to an ERA+ (accounting for his league and ballpark) of 159 (59% better than league average). Sandy Koufax, through age 28? 1,6652⁄ innings pitched, 9.2 strikeouts per nine, an ERA+ of 121. Even Koufax’s best years, taking out any of his developmental time, look a lot like Kershaw’s performance overall — 167 ERA+, 9.4 strikeouts per nine.
But trying to find a comparable pitcher to Kershaw through age 28 is all but impossible, regardless of era. Roger Clemens? 8.4 K/9, 149 ERA+. Awfully good. Not Kershaw. Nolan Ryan rivals him in K rate, but his 111 ERA+ doesn’t come close. Greg Maddux was no strikeout pitcher, and his 130 ERA+ trails Kershaw badly. (Thank you, as always, BaseballReference.com, for the numbers.)
Only Pedro Martinez, with his 168 ERA+ and 10.4 per nine, bests Kershaw among hurlers through his current age. And the proximity to which Kershaw finds himself to Martinez, whose peak serves as the Platonic ideal for pitchers, is instructive in itself.
And yet, all of this talk about Kershaw and October, a familiar pattern when 21st-century athletes are accomplishing all but the ultimate prize in team sports.
That conversation would have followed Kershaw into another winter short of the World Series had his Dodgers failed to rally in Game 5 against the Nationals, if Jansen hadn’t entered in the seventh inning, powered by a manager willing to defy conventional wisdom and abetted by a roster with deficiencies that almost forced him to do so.
Instead, the Dodgers reached the ninth, and Kershaw, who had been ruled out in no uncertain terms by Roberts before Game 5, ambled out to the bullpen, following in the footsteps of a pitcher from 90 years ago.
That’s where anyone with a love of baseball history turned, mentally, to the moment when Grover Cleveland Alexander, the veteran hurler for the St. Louis Cardinals, entered Game 7 of the 1926 World Series, reportedly hung over. After winning Game 6 in a complete game, he retired the first five hitters he faced, then walked Babe Ruth, who inexplica- bly tried to steal second and was thrown out by 10 feet.
It’s the kind of thing movies are made about — and it was, with Ronald Reagan playing Alexander in The Winning Team.
And it represents a different time in baseball history. Imagine a world in which the Cardinals were winning their first World Series. It’s worth keeping in mind that just as bullpen usage is changing, as Jansen, Kershaw and Andrew Miller of the Indians can tell you, baseball is a constantly shifting, innovating game, and what’s past might not remain in the past forever.
And so it is with Kershaw, who pitched brilliantly against the Cubs in NLCS Game 2, throwing seven scoreless innings at Wrigley Field, something only three people have ever done in the postseason. Part of that is Cubs futility, for sure, but tossing zeroes as the wind blows out at night in Wrigley, well, that might be even more amazing than coming back on two days’ rest in relief to close out a series.
Even the seventh inning turned out to be his friend, though he acknowledged some legitimate nerves when Javier Baez launched a liner deep to center field. Not deep enough this time.
After it was over, Kershaw faced questions, all right. So did his manager. And they all revolved around faith in Kershaw.
Roberts got to explain why Kershaw seems to be getting stronger as the calendar tilts toward November — that rest from a back injury might be one explanation — and Kershaw himself was asked why he does so well in pressure-packed situations.
“When you’re in the moment, you’re just trying to just constantly stop runs, preventing runs,” he said. “And the way that (Kyle) Hendricks was throwing, it was one of those games where one pitch could have been the deciding factor. So, really just kind of couldn’t look up for a minute for air and just kind of kept going through it and fortunate to get through it tonight.”
Where he’s headed next, though, might be a parade.