Clayton Kershaw should have been a hero of Game 5 for the Dodgers.
The Nationals trailed by two runs in the seventh inning of the winner-take-all contest, but they had two runners on with two outs. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts summoned Kershaw — who will one day be in Cooperstown for his extended brilliance as a starter — from the bullpen to face Adam Eaton, a lefty-on-lefty matchup that favored the home team.
And Kershaw was brilliant. He needed just three pitches to strike out Eaton, end the threat and move the Dodgers to within six outs of a spot in the NLCS.
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That’s where his day should have ended, a future Hall of Famer playing LOOGY in a huge postseason situation because that’s what the team needed. It was, as they say, a moment.
But somehow, Roberts sent Kershaw back out to open the eighth inning, despite a full and rested bullpen. And despite that, the first batter up was right-handed hitter Anthony Rendon, an unflappable star who just might win the NL MVP this year. Oh, and in Kershaw’s first start this year, Rendon came to bat three times and collected a double, a single and a walk.
Roberts was thinking about Juan Soto, the 20-year-old lefty who follows Rendon in the Nationals’ order. He wanted Kershaw, instead of right-handed reliever Kenta Maeda, to face Soto, so he let Kershaw face Rendon, too.
“I wanted to keep Kenta away from Soto,” Roberts said after the game. “So you look at what Kenta has done, he's been a righty killer and he has been throughout his career. So, yeah, there's a Rendon situation, but then there's also Soto behind there.”
You know what happened. Rendon hit Kershaw’s first pitch of the eighth inning over the wall in left field for a solo homer. And then Soto crushed Kershaw’s second pitch of the inning way over the wall in right-center, another solo home run. All of a sudden, the game was tied.
And Kershaw’s moment was ruined.
These @Nationals don't quit. #NLDS pic.twitter.com/tuVbJYR8mE
— MLB (@MLB) October 10, 2019
The TBS cameras focused on Kershaw in the dugout, as he sat there with shoulders slumped, wearing a look of disbelief. And even if you hate the Dodgers, any baseball fan with a semblance of a soul had to feel for the pitcher. He’d failed his team, and he was wearing those emotions of disappointment for all to see.
And so Game 5, instead of being a brief highlight in Kershaw’s career, added another chapter to what’s been an underwhelming postseason showing for the lefty. His regular-season ERA sits at 2.44 — it was 3.03 this year, the first full season of his career it’s been above 3.00, which is incredible — and his playoff ERA is 4.43.
Contrary to what the common Kershaw narrative might say, he’s had great moments in October. He’s made 25 starts in the postseason, and in nine of those he’s thrown at least six inning with one or zero earned runs allowed. That’s brilliant stuff in pressure situations.
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But, yeah, there have been other-side-of-the-coin games, too. The starts against the Cardinals in 2013 NLCS and 2014 NLDS come to mind. Kershaw was brilliant in Game 1 of the 2017 World Series against the Astros — seven innings, three hits, one run and 11 strikeouts — but couldn’t make it out of the fifth inning in Game 5, allowing six runs. He gave up nine runs in 11 innings in his two starts against the Red Sox in the 2018 World Series.
So Wednesday’s Game 5 joins that list. It’s not up top — no matter how disappointing it is to see a 106-win season end early, it’s still not the World Series — but it’s one that never should have been allowed to happen.
