Clayton Kershaw’s mantra for holding the Dodgers together: ‘Next pitch’
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
ANAHEIM, Calif. — It was late, the score was tied, the Angels were threatening and the Dodgers — losers of three straight and 18 of their previous 30, uncommonly hampered by a shorthanded rotation and an unreliable bullpen — needed their enduring ace to bail them out again. Clayton Kershaw centered his thoughts on a simple message.
Next pitch. Next pitch. Next pitch.
Kershaw has built a Hall of Fame career, a legacy, out of ignoring context and channeling his energy on the task directly in front of him. Out of focusing solely on “next pitch,” whatever that represents at a given time, again and again. On this Tuesday night, in the seventh inning of a scoreless game from Angel Stadium, he stacked enough of those pitches together to escape a two-on, none-out jam, leading his Dodgers to another much-needed victory and leaving his teammates in awe once more.
“He just continues to do it year in and year out,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “It’s absolutely incredible. And when we needed him the most, he did it again. He’s been doing that for the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2008, and we needed him 15 years later to do it again.”
The Dodgers, perhaps, have never needed Kershaw more. A franchise that boasted MLB’s lowest ERA each of the past four years — and provided three of the seven best adjusted-ERA seasons in baseball history during that stretch — possess a 4.50 ERA despite allowing only two runs over the last three games, the highest in the Dodgers’ 66-year history in Los Angeles. Their bullpen has a higher ERA than all but three last-place teams; the rotation is without Walker Buehler, Julio Urias, Dustin May and Noah Syndergaard, the latter of whom has pitched to a 7.16 ERA in 55⅓ innings.
Key high-leverage relievers have struggled and developing starting-pitching prospects have been counted on more heavily than expected. Kershaw has acted as one of few constants, making every start while trending toward his 10th All-Star Game.
“He’s the only one standing from Opening Day,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, referencing a rotation that has seen four-fifths of its initial members land on the injured list. “For him to obviously realize that but accept the responsibility, but not add pressure to himself — it’s a skill that’s certainly been tested and learned. The way he goes about things, man, he’s so consistent. I just can’t imagine where we’d be without him.”
Kershaw’s seven scoreless innings against the Angels dropped his ERA to 2.72, a mark topped by only six qualified pitchers. It represented the sixth time he had recorded 21 outs this season. The rest of the Dodgers’ staff has combined for only three such outings. He’s 35, midway through his 16th season with a franchise that has turned over multiple times since he started, and yet he’s anchoring a staff that is barely hanging on around him.
“This is what we’re supposed to do,” Kershaw said. “This is what I get paid to do is to pitch, and to pitch every fifth day or sixth day or whatever it is. Those years in the past I feel like are aberrations. This is what it’s supposed to look like is to be healthy and pitch.”
It has been eight years since Kershaw made at least 30 starts and accumulated at least 180 innings in a regular season. In the time since, from 2016 to 2022, he made 10 trips to the IL, half of them related to his back, and slowly realized changes were necessary. To persist, one of the most famously intense, routine-oriented pitchers in recent memory needed to alter and reduce his workload between starts. It wasn’t easy.
“I’m not one who sits passively well,” Kershaw said. “I’m not one that’s just like, ‘Go take an off-day.’ I’m not good at that.”
Over these past couple of years, though, Kershaw has begun to throw fewer pitches in his bullpen sessions and throw less weight around in his workouts. Under the guidance of the Dodgers’ training staff, he has also focused on creating more range of motion with his hips to take pressure off his troublesome back. Kershaw said his hips are “moving better than they have in a long time.”
“When you land you have to be able to hold the load in your leg, and when you push off you have to be able to push off well,” he explained. “And if you don’t do either of those things well, it creeps up to your back. Being able to accept the load to the ground, being able to push off well, and then being able to reset it in-between starts, being able to reinforce it with your workouts — all those things I probably was stubborn, like, ‘I’m not going to change anything.’ And then over time, as you get hurt more, you start listening more.”
Kershaw’s fastball is averaging 91.2 mph, his highest since 2017 if you ignore the COVID-19-shortened season of 2020. But the increase is nonetheless marginal. At a time when triple-digit radar-gun readings are commonplace, Kershaw excels by mastering the basics, such as getting ahead in counts (his 68.8% first-pitch strike percentage ranks fifth this season), commanding glove side (opposing right-handed hitters are slashing just .236/.281/.398 against him) and tunneling his slider and curveball perfectly with his fastball (he has recorded a major league-leading 83 strikeouts on breaking balls).
Kershaw established himself as the dominant pitcher of his era from 2011 to ’19, during which he won three Cy Young Awards and an MVP and accumulated 54.7 FanGraphs wins above replacement, more than anybody not named Mike Trout. His demise since has been greatly exaggerated. Among pitchers who have logged at least 350 innings since 2020, Kershaw ranks third in ERA (2.75), first in WHIP (0.99) and first in strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.95). In short: When he steps onto the mound, he remains one of the best in the world.
The prevailing question is: When will he step off it for good?
Kershaw has signed back-to-back one-year contracts and is committed to going year-to-year for what remains of his career. He hates the attention that comes with it but has found it necessary to reassess after every season and weigh the opinions of his wife and his children. The 2024 season, therefore, is not promised, no matter what his numbers look like by the end of 2023. And as soon as his production begins to slip, Kershaw is adamant that he’ll walk away.
“Yeah,” he said, “I don’t want to be average.”
MILWAUKEE — The Cincinnati Reds lost 1-0 to the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday night to become only the second team in the live-ball era (since 1920) to lose three consecutive 1-0 games.
The Reds joined the Philadelphia Phillies, who lost three straight in the same fashion in 1960, according to ESPN Research.
“Nobody’s happy with what’s happened the last three games,” Reds manager Terry Francona said after the string of 1-0 losses continued in the opener of a four-game series at Milwaukee. “We’ll figure it out together. I feel strongly about that.”
Cincinnati’s lineup showcased its potential Monday in a 14-3 victory over the Texas Rangers, but the Reds haven’t scored since.
Texas’ Nathan Eovaldi outdueled Carson Spiers on Tuesday. Jack Leiter and four Texas relievers combined for 10 strikeouts Wednesday as the Reds wasted a brilliant performance from Hunter Greene.
Milwaukee’s Nestor Cortes shut down Cincinnati on Thursday, allowing one hit, striking out six and walking two over six innings.
Cincinnati’s Nick Lodolo gave up four hits and one unearned run in 6⅔ innings Thursday, but he took the loss because the Reds mustered just two hits.
“It’s part of the game, you know?” Lodolo said. “I’ll be honest with you. Obviously I want us to score, but I’m not really thinking about it. I’ve got to do my job at the end of the day, regardless. We’ll turn it around. I guarantee that.”
That’s the attitude Francona wants to see from his pitchers as Cincinnati’s hitters try to break out of their slump.
“We’re not going to have a situation where it’s ‘us’ when we win and it’s ‘they’ when we lose,” Francona said. “We’ll do this together.”
Francona said there’s no common thread between the games that explains his lineup’s struggles. The Reds have faced different styles of pitchers each time.
Eovaldi is a veteran right-hander who went the distance while allowing four hits and no walks. Leiter’s a hard-throwing rookie right-hander. Cortes, a veteran left-hander, doesn’t have the velocity of Eovaldi or Leiter but effectively mixed his cutter and changeup with his fastball.
Cincinnati’s struggles Thursday may have been particularly frustrating because Cortes looked so awful in his last start, a 20-9 loss to the New York Yankees. Cortes allowed homers on each of his first three pitches that day and ended up yielding eight hits and five walks in two innings of a game that drew attention to the Yankees’ use of “torpedo bats.”
The Reds made Cortes look like an entirely different pitcher.
“It was embarrassing, what happened to me last time,” Cortes said. “I think, as a starter, you’ve got 30 or 32 of these. There’s going to be a lot of bad ones throughout the way. You’ve just got to learn how to brush them off and go to the next one. That’s what I did.”
The Reds’ lone hit off Cortes came from Jose Trevino, who delivered a one-out double in the third off his former Yankees teammate. Cincinnati’s only other hit Thursday was a single by Jeimer Candelario off Elvis Peguero in the seventh.
Cincinnati has a combined nine hits, three walks and 27 strikeouts during the skid.
“To be totally honest, you see this all the time throughout a baseball season,” Trevino said. “Pitchers will pick up the hitters and the hitters will pick up the pitchers. It will all switch at some point. We’re going to need them. They’re going to need us. And at some point, we’re all going to be together. That’s just how the baseball season goes.
“Right now, our pitchers are doing really well and our hitters, we’re grinding. It’s not like we’re out there trying to give outs away. We’re out there putting some good at-bats together. We’re going to turn this thing around. I have full confidence in this team.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who slipped and fell in the shower Sunday morning, was put on the injured list for his ankle injury, the team announced Thursday.
The move is retroactive to Monday. He hasn’t played since Saturday and is 3-for-12 this season with two home runs and four RBIs.
The incident happened at home during the Dodgers’ off day. Freeman’s wife had to drive him to Dodger Stadium on Sunday for a three-hour treatment session. By the time it was over, he was able to drive himself home. An X-ray showed no serious damage.
Freeman sprained his right ankle on a play at first base in late September and struggled in the first two rounds of the postseason, but it was hardly evident during the World Series. He homered in the first four games and had 12 RBIs, earning the World Series MVP award as the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in five games.
He had debridement surgery in December to remove loose bodies in the ankle.
The Dodgers (8-0) begin a three-game series at the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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