CURIOUS CASE OF CLAYTON KERSHAW
You never know what you will get when the Dodgers ace takes the hill in the post-season
There is no greater mystery in sports than Clayton Kershaw.
And even though Kershaw's Los Angeles Dodgers are back in the World Series, giving him yet another big post-season platform on which to pitch, there is no chance the mystery will be definitely resolved.
Kershaw is one of greatest pitchers of this or any other generation. The statistical evidence from more than a decade of brilliance is overwhelming.
To pick just one nugget: In 2020, at 32 years old and with some of the filthiness of his pitches lost to age, he still posted a 2.16 ERA while striking out 62 batters in 58 innings and walking just eight. EIGHT.
And yet he has done things like that before. In 2016, despite missing extended time on the disabled list, Kershaw struck out 172 batters over 21 starts and walked just 11. ELEVEN. Sorry for yelling.
But, of course, he also kind of stinks in the post-season.
The statistical evidence is again plain to see: His ERA in the playoffs of 4.31 is almost two runs higher than his regular season ERA. The rate at which he allows home runs in the playoffs is double that of the regular season.
Images of Kershaw in a post-season dugout, staring off vacantly into the distance after another rough outing, have become as much a part of October baseball as cold nights and early sunsets.
For a while, the Kershaw story made for good sports-radio banter or barroom talk, back when people could go to bars. Was there an explanation for why y his regular-season greatness ess didn't translate to the playof playoffs? Was it a product of randomness ranmple and small sample sizes? Was it a flaw in Kerp, Kershaw's mental makeup, something that caused d him to perform worse in high-pressure games? Was he — gasp — a choker? r?
As someone who does oes not like ascribing results to o intangible factors when en there might be a tangible ble explanation, I had a lot ot of time for the idea that Kershaw Kera was sometimes a vics. victim of his own success. He was Clayton Kershaw, and so managers left him on the mound to try to battle his way out of jams when mortal pitchers would have been een hooked.
But you can only watch atch a guy get shelled so many ny times before you grudgingly gingly admit that a significant nt part of the problem has to do with Kershaw himself.
That doesn't make it t any easier to explain. If there was something that caused him to be less effective in the post-season — fatigue, , more pressure, better opposition — then Kersh Kershaw would presumably be susceptible su ceptible to it on a consistent consis basis. This would especially especi be the case if he came undone at big moments moments, if he lost his confidence when w the stakes were highest: You'd expect some consistency consi ency in the choking. Except Kershaw ha has built a post-season career with many excellent mom moments among the m mediocre ocre ones. In 2013 2013, back in the playo playoffs for t the firs first tim time in four years a and in a Cy Young season, se son, he gave gav up a single run o over seven innings a and struck out 12 to op open the NLDS. He pitched pitche 12 more innings without witho surrendering an earned run in thos those playoffs before getting get drilled by St. Louis Loui in Game 6 of the NLCS. NLC He had another three poor starts over ov the next two post-seasons post-se sons — this was whe when the Kershaw/playoff narrative rative became fully ba baked in the sports-media ki kiln — but then the Dodgers w won both of his starts in the 2016 NLDS, and he cam came in from the bullpen on ba barely a day's rest to close out Game 5 at Nationals Par Park. How could someone who allegedly wilted on o the sport's biggest stag stages enter a game with a tired arm, in front of a b braying ing opposing cro crowd, and do what Kershaw did? He was great in his first start in the following NLCS, but then was dinged in his second start. So it goes.
Because the Dodgers have been so consistently good over the past several years, they keep going back to the playoffs and Kershaw keeps filling up the resume, with some good starts that bolster the argument that there is nothing wrong with his ability to perform in the playoffs, and then a clunker or two after which he has the thousand-yard stare in the dugout again.
Just this season alone, he pitched a dazzling eight innings — no runs, 13 strikeouts — in the Wild Card Series and won his only start in the NLDS before getting lit up in the NLCS by the Atlanta Braves. It is positively baffling.
Whatever happens against Tampa Bay in the World Series, Kershaw has such a body of evidence by now that it won't change the larger point: He's a phenomenal talent who sometimes shows it in the playoffs, and often does not.
Over 13 seasons in the big leagues, he has given up at least four earned runs about once in every seven regular-season starts. He has done that at a rate of once in every 2.5 starts in the playoffs.
And that's the thing about Clayton Kershaw, playoff enigma: He could absolutely shut down the Rays in his first start in the World Series.
But even if he did, would you bet on him to do it again?