Kershaw slips up on the big stage once again
Clayton Kershaw’s first pitch was a fastball, and Trea Turner smacked the cover off it.
It was that quick. It was that ominous. The demons didn’t wait.
The ball skittered inside third base and down the leftfield line, and Turner was soon standing on second base while the breathless attention of Dodger Stadium was focused on the pitching mound.
Was this really happening again?
It was. It did. The greatest Dodgers regular-season pitcher drove into another October ditch Friday, and his teammates were once again unable to dig him out.
Kershaw allowed three runs to the Washington Nationals in the first two innings and, while he settled down, the game never did. The Dodgers couldn’t figure out Stephen Strasburg. The Dodgers bullpen struggled just
enough.
The game ended with the bases loaded and Corey Seager striking out flailing on a spinning slider from Daniel Hudson, and that will be the lasting memory of the Dodgers’ 4-2 loss in a series-evening Game 2 of the National League Division Series.
But make no mistake, it started with Kershaw, who finished with a decent line that nonetheless proved deadly.
In six innings he allowed three runs on six hits with four strikeouts and one walk, so it won’t look bad in a box score. But it looked so familiarly troublesome on the field, the Dodgers’ longtime ace not giving his team enough of a chance to win in a postseason game that required it.
The future Hall of Famer now has a 4.33 postseason ERA, compared with a 2.44 regular-season ERA. For a pitcher of his experience, it is a disparity unmatched in baseball history.
One of the greatest pitchers in baseball history now has a 9-11 postseason record, compared with a 169-74 regular-season record. For a guy who will one day command a Dodger Stadium statue, that disparity rings cold.
That the troubles started in the first inning should have been no surprise for more than one reason. Kershaw has a 5.78 ERA in 28 first innings this year, including allowing 10 homers in 28 starts.
The Nationals scored once in the first against Kershaw, but it could have been much worse. They loaded the bases on that leadoff double by Turner, a walk to Anthony Rendon and a pitch that hit Juan Soto in the upper arm. Howie Kendrick, the Game 1 goat, followed with an RBI single to left.
Then Kershaw was fortunate when Ryan Zimmerman swung at his first pitch and fouled out, after which Kurt Suzuki stranded the bases loaded with a strikeout.
But they had worked Kershaw for 26 pitches, which was damage in itself.
“Early, they were taking some good swings,” Manager Dave Roberts said.
Kershaw found trouble again immediately in the second by hitting Victor Robles in the lower leg, and do you know how rare it is for Kershaw to hit two batters in a game? He had hit only two batters all season, and had hit two batters in a game three times in his 12-year career.
After Strasburg bunted Robles to second, Adam Eaton and Rendon followed with consecutive shots into left field, a single and a double, to account for two runs.
Kershaw settled down such that he allowed only two hits in the final four innings, but by the time he left, the Dodgers were in a rut against the great Strasburg.
“Clayton did a good job of limiting damage. After that I thought he threw the ball very well,” Roberts said. “I think Clayton saving our ’pen, for him to give us six innings, was big.”
But Strasburg was bigger, allowing just one run on three hits in six innings and continuing his postseason mastery.
Strasburg entered with an 0.41 ERA in four postseason appearances with 28 strikeouts and four walks in 22 innings.
Kershaw has never quite been that pitcher for the Dodgers, despite annual hopes that it will change. Even though he finished the year with a 3.03 ERA, the highest of any season in which he made at least 22 starts, he had won his last three playoff openers. And even though he allowed a career-high 28 homers this year, there was hope that he would apply an early dagger as he did in last season’s division series, when he allowed the Atlanta Braves just two hits in eight innings in one of his best postseason starts.
Alas, for Dodgers fans, it was not to be, and reminded them only of the previous time he was on the mound in a postseason game.
It was last October, when he allowed four runs in seven innings to the Boston Red Sox in their clinching Game 5 of the World Series.
Kershaw’s struggles have not only been real, but also symbolic, as he has been on the mound for the Dodgers’ last loss of the postseason for the last three years and five of the last six years.
There is a chance the Dodgers could pitch Kershaw in relief in Game 5 if it is necessary.
He could have another chance in this series, in this postseason that quickly looks like so many other postseasons.
He’ll likely welcome that chance.