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With Game 6 looming, Kershaw is not defined by inaccurate image
In this Oct. 6, 2016, file photo, Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw pauses in the dugout during baseball batting practice at Nationals Park. Kershaw will start Saturday in a must-win Game 6 for the Dodgers. AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File

With Game 6 looming, Kershaw not defined by inaccurate image

Clayton Kershaw is not sweating the small stuff.

It is both an odd, yet typical response headed into such a pivotal game as Saturday’s Game 6 of the National League Championship Series is. But it is one that should be at the very least expected from the Dodgers ace lefty, as he has been here before.

When asked about potential excitement for himself headed into Saturday’s potentially decisive matchup, Kershaw was indifferent to the idea.

“I don’t know... such a deep thought,” he lamented while discussing his upcoming start. “You do everything you can try to keep it like another start. Then obviously the magnitude and the situation of the game kind of raises everybody’s adrenaline.”

And Kershaw will not be immune to that rush as the game draws near. But he has exceeded at converting that adrenaline into clutch outings this October, something that was doubted he had the ability to do headed into this October. And for some rather broad reasons.

For Kershaw, Saturday’s scene could feel peculiarly familiar. It was only three years ago that Kershaw found him making a crucial road start in an elimination game, as he faced the St. Louis Cardinals, down three games to two in the 2013 NLCS. The hopes were for him to extend the series another day, which would have given the ball back to Hyun-Jin Ryu, who had shutout the Cardinals over seven innings in a Game 3 victory.

However, Kershaw was unable to deliver that day, as the Cardinals struck him for four runs in the third inning and then delivered the death bow to his day – and ultimately the Dodgers' season –  in a five run fifth inning. Kershaw took credit for seven of those runs, which came on 10 hits and two walks. Meanwhile, the Dodger offense was shutout, and the Cardinals won the National League for the second time in three years.

Now stop for a minute and frame this in the context of the start that Kershaw is on the verge of making. The Dodgers are headed back to Chicago after dropping two of three games in LA, down 3-2 to the suddenly re-vitalized Cubs. Kershaw will toe the mound with a chance to stop his team’s slide and extend the season to a decisive game seven. This will all come on the heels of him coming off of a dominant Game 2 start, where he made a two run lead stand up, pitching seven shutout innings at Wrigley Field and affirmed the Dodger position in the series.

And as the déjà vu continues, Kershaw did something very similar in his last NLCS outing. Although he did not emerge victorious, he held the Cardinals to one run on two hits over six innings. Meanwhile the Dodger offense was shutdown, scattering five hits but offering no runs in support.

This is eerily similar to where Kershaw will sit on Saturday, and he will have the chance to alter his checkered postseason history by extending the LA season yet another day, as well as tacking on yet another resilient outing on his redeeming 2016 postseason resume.

But even that narrative around Kershaw’s effectiveness in the postseason is an oddity, because the idea that he has been an abysmal postseason pitcher is rather inflated. In the 2013 NLCS, he received zero run support over two games. Meanwhile, despite the fact he succumbed to the big inning twice in Game 6, he pitched eight scoreless frames over those two outings.

However, he has pitched in nine postseason series thus far and has carried a 4.39 ERA. Is that Madison Bumgarnerian? Absolutely not. However, is it tragically bad October pitcher level either? Not exactly either.

Avoiding the big inning has been something he has struggled with. In 2009, the Phillies tacked on all five runs against him in Game 1 of the series in the fifth inning. He later allowed a two run homer in relief during Game 5, which had already seen Vincent Padilla be trounced ahead of him in a game that LA never led in.

He dominated Atlanta in the 2013 NLDS, allowing one run over 13 innings and striking out 18. This included him winning Game 1, and throwing six shutout innings in game five, which LA went on to win.

A year ago, he split two starts in an NLDS matchup with the New York Mets, allowing three runs over 6.2 innings and striking out 11, all while the Dodger lineup failed to cross the plate while he was on the mound. In Game 4, he returned to the mound in dominant fashion, working seven innings and allowing only three hits, one run and striking out eight in a victory that pushed the series to a decisive game five, which they lost.

Perhaps the true foil to Kershaw’s faulty postseason image is that the Cardinals have hit him hard historically in October. He allowed 18 runs over 22.2 innings against St. Louis over four starts over 2013-14, losing each outing.

The inexcusable moment was the seventh inning collapse in Game 1 of the 2014 NLCS, where the Cardinals erased a four run deficit by posting eight runs on six hits in the seventh inning against him, including a pair of home runs. Before that, Kershaw was strong, scattering two runs over six innings.

His second loss of that series is yet another one where the box score belies the effort. Kershaw shutdown the Cardinal lineup for the better part of seven innings, until Matt Adams hit a hugely unlikely home run against him (Adams was a .190 hitter against lefties in the year), which credited him with yet another badly timed loss.

It has been these series that has framed Kershaw as a postseason failure, rather than focus on the pure effort and overall quality that the majority of his outings have yielded. In his postseason career, Kershaw has posted 55 shutout innings overall across 13 starts. Yet he has allowed three or more runs in four innings, with two of those outings being in the seventh inning. Meaning his much of his subpar reputation has been built on a pair of badly timed, crushing innings. Not games, but innings. He has often put the Dodgers in position to win far more postseason games than they ultimately have, and better October roster management – where going to the bullpen much quicker is a key to success – could have yielded a much more representative outcome of his performance.

But October baseball is unflinchingly unforgiving and has a long memory to boot. Kershaw has lost more than he won, and has not stayed at the superhuman form he has unleashed in route to four Cy Young Awards and an MVP throughout October. He is held to a higher standard, so his fall – right or wrong – is further.

Should this all excuse Kershaw from judgement for not enduring in some of the most critical moments the Dodgers have entrusted him with over the past few years? Not at all. However, he has pitched for more high quality innings that have gone without run support than he has downright awful outings. Even in his worst starts, more often than not it has been a singular inning – which has come late in games – that he has faltered.

Don Mattingly had the tendency to ride his ace long past when the wheels had fallen off. In turn, Dave Roberts has been more judicious with Kershaw, electing to pull him while the going was still good more often than not. His alleged demons of the past are more myth than reality, and have often come when he has given more than what would be asked of any other pitcher. And while he is his generation’s best on the hill, he still is a man and a man that requires both run support and a sympathetic to the situation manager as well.

Kershaw will be ready to go on Saturday. He will be fully armed with the experiences that he has lived through in this exact moment in the past, as well as with the confidence of knowing that it does not matter either. The only thing that does is that he goes out and puts his team in the best position to win yet again this October. The man is primed to both potentially rewrite his own history while altering another team’s run at shattering their own dismal mythos.

But truly, no pressure on him. Maybe some excitement, but don’t bank on it changing who Kershaw will be by the time he both reaches – and leaves – the mound on Saturday evening.

Can you name every Los Angeles Dodgers player in franchise history to throw a no-hitter?

The 2018 hitter was a combined no-hitter. This quiz lists the starting pitcher, who was also the pitcher of record.

SCORE:
0/21
TIME:
5:00
1884
Sam Kimber
1886, 1888
Adonis Terry
1891
Tom Lovett
1906
Mel Eason
1908
Nap Rucker
1925
Dazzy Vance
1940
Tex Carleton
1946
Ed Head
1948
Rex Barney
1952, 1965
Carl Erskine
1956
Sal Maglie
1962, 1963, 1964, 1965
Sandy Koufax
1970
Bill Singer
1980
Jerry Reuss
1990
Fernando Valenzuela
1992
Kevin Gross
1995
Ramon Martinez
1996
Hideo Nomo
2014
Josh Beckett
2014
Clayton Kershaw
2018
Walker Buehler

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