A different yet still productive Clayton Kershaw willed himself to another Game 1 start. With retirement beckoning, can he first lead the Dodgers' patchwork rotation to a title?
After missing two months, the future Hall of Famer had done everything in his power to be part of another October run only to feel the pain pulsing through his elbow again. He was wincing and grimacing. The final image of the three-time Cy Young Award winner's season was a cruel one. Kershaw was still clutching the baseball as he sauntered off the field and into an uncertain future, removed after allowing five hits and three runs in 1.2 innings.
Earlier this year, he won his 200th game, making him the only player in his team's Los Angeles history to accomplish the feat. He owns a better career winning percentage than any other 200-game winner in baseball's modern era. On his final home start of the regular season, Kershaw vaulted past Don Drysdale to move into second place in franchise history in wins.
"It's remarkable," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said."It really is. I think that Clayton is the first to tell you he doesn't like to use anything as an excuse or talk about anything, but I know what's going on. I just have so much respect for him. People can't do what he can do."He started throwing in January, but he did not know how he'd feel once he did.
Kershaw claimed he wasn't thinking about the possible finality of it all during the performance, though his wife and kids attended. He waved to them from the dugout after five shutout frames. The Dodgers won, and so did Kershaw — for the 210th time in his career. Only Don Sutton has won more games in a Dodgers uniform.
He has pitched with at least five days of rest in each of those eight starts. He was given 10 days off after his first start of September, and his past two starts came on six days of rest. "I remember there was a start here a few years ago where I think he was throwing 82 miles an hour in a day game where his back went out," Roberts said."And he found a way to get three or four innings of zero-hit baseball, or no run, and I don't know how he was doing it. He ended up going on the IL right after that. He just sort of wills himself to get guys out."
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