Clayton Kershaw caps off legendary career with a win over Mariners
Seattle – It was a last dough. A last withdrawal. A final ovation for a future temple of fame.
And it rightly ended on a last swing-and-miss.
At the top of the sixth round Sunday afternoon, during the last release of the regular season of his illustrious 18-year-old career, Clayton Kershaw broke a brand cursor who lowered under the area. Eugenio Suárez agitated helplessly like so many others before him.
With this, Kershaw had his seventh withdrawal of the day and the 3,052nd of his career. He had carried out 5 ⅓ sleeves aimlessly on the way to his 223rd career victory, reducing his career ERA to 2.53 – the best among any launcher leaving with 1000 career rounds in the live ball era (since 1920).
In the canoe, manager Dave Roberts quickly signaled to the first basic player of the first goal Freddie Freeman. While Kershaw’s latest career starts, Roberts wanted one of his superstar teammates to be the one who withdrew him.
“To be able to take, in my opinion, the greatest launcher of our generation of his last departure from the regular season,” said Freeman, “I think that could be up there as one of my favorite baseball moments that I had.”
When Freeman arrived at the mound, he exchanged an embrace with Kershaw, who also kissed the rest of his teammates on the ground. He asked the ball jokingly, a request that Kershaw refused as he kept him within his reach.
The Dodgers launcher, Clayton Kershaw, kisses his teammates while he withdraws from the Sunday match against the Seattle Mariners.
(John Froschauer / Associated Press)
Then, the 37-year-old man left the field for perhaps the last time; Puncting his cap from a crowd of T-Mobile Park acclaiming, offering a grateful wave while he disappeared in the canoe, and taking a moment on the bench at the end of his 445th outing of MLB.
“I am so grateful to all of this,” said Kershaw about the receptions he has obtained since the announcement of his retirement two weeks ago. “The Dodger Stadium last week was quite incredible. To be able to leave this mound at this ovation is something that I will never forget. And today it was really special too. So I couldn’t ask anything more. It was an incredible 10 days, two weeks.”
“Now,” he added, before what will be his last playoff series, “we can all focus on the beat of the Reds.”
While the Dodgers finished their regular season with a 6-1 victory against the Seattle Mariners – which included Shohei Ohtani establishing a new personal club record and in a single season with his 55th circuit, beating the high brands he established last year – the Cincinnati Reds won the last spot in the National League on Tuesday.
Kershaw will not be part of the team’s list for this series, Roberts announced before the match.
Thus, the Dodgers (who finished season 93-69) will have to win at least two additional matches for Kershaw to appear again on a major league mound.
“I always feel like I can get people out next month if I need it,” said Kershaw, before cracking a smile: “And then I don’t have to do that.”
The decision to leave Kershaw out of the list of jokers is not shocking.
He was not going to appear in the starting rotation of the series, with Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Ohtani aligned themselves for the three games (Roberts said that Snell is a “good bet” to launch match 1). And although Kershaw could have been an option in the enclosure of the lifts, the dodgers already have an abundance of left -handed lifts.
The Dodgers launcher, Clayton Kershaw, and the recipient Ben Rortvedt, in the center on the left, on foot to the canoe after working the fifth round against the Seattle Mariners.
(John Froschauer / Associated Press)
If the dodgers advance, Roberts noted, Kershaw will remain in consideration for a list place in the following rounds and could help in any way.
“I can see him start a match. I can see him coming for a short burst. I can see him with a long relief,” said Roberts. “I don’t think anyone can predict how it will be played. We have to pass the Wild Card series and see that stands after that.”
If this is the end of the line for Kershaw, however, he comes out according to his own conditions.
After being limited by injuries for a large part of the last three seasons – including the missing World Series race last year with injuries to the toes and knees that ultimately required an off -season operation – the triple winner of the Cy Young Award decided to return to the Dodgers this season for a last crack during a championship.
Even in the twilight of his career, he ended up shooting one of his most impactful performances. More than 23 outings, he posted a file of 11-2, an MPM of 3.36, and provided a regular veteran presence which helped the dodgers to overcome the injuries in rotation at the start of the season and to survive a collapse in the second half which almost cost them the division.
“Being in good health, taking each start is what I wanted to do,” said Kershaw. “I didn’t want it to be because of an injury that I stopped playing, or being because I couldn’t get anyone anymore. It was perfect. It was really. It was the ideal way to do so. ”
