Clayton Kershaw was at the heart of the Dodgers’ franchise revival
On the dashboard in the right field, it was 7:08 p.m. in the city of Angels: Los Angeles. And a crowd of 53,037 was just sitting Friday to see the biggest launcher of his generation take the mound at the Dodger Stadium, perhaps for the last time.
This evening
We are young
So let’s get fire to the world
We can burn brighter than the sun
The fun group. Released what was going to become the song Signature of Clayton Kershaw on September 20, 2011. That night, he beat Tim Lécecum and the Giants of San Francisco 2-1 to become a winner of 20 games for the first time, during the year, Kershaw would become a winner of Cy Young Award for the first time.
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If success means leaving a better place you have found, Kershaw has triumphed spectacularly.
Friday, the day after Kershaw’s announcement that he would retire at the end of the season, the Dodgers again beat the Giants. To make a good measure, the Dodgers won a place in the playoff series for the 13th consecutive season, and with it the possibility for Kershaw and Co. to win a third championship in six years.
Amusing. broken 10 years ago. Kershaw played 18 years old, all in Dodger Blue.
“Eighteen years of memories that you cannot just put in words overnight,” said Kershaw, “or feel all the feelings you can feel.”
What distinguishes Kershaw in the pantheon of the great dodgers is that it was guided light through the darkest times.
“The Dodger culture has been established long before me, and it will be established long after my departure,” he said. “This is the cruel thing about baseball: your career will have disappeared in an instant, and the game continues. But it is also the beautiful thing on this subject too.
“This game does not need anyone. I am so grateful that I am a little part of the story of Dodger for as long as I am here. ”
In the 1960s, the Dodgers had Koufax, Drysdale and Wills. In the 1970s: Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey. In the 1980s: Valenzuela, Hershiser and Gibson. In this series of success: Seager, Bellinger and Turner; And now Ohtani, Freeman and Betts.
Between: Kershaw, an excellence metronome every fifth days, and not enough. When he made his debut in the major league on May 25, 2008, the Dodgers had not won a post-season series for 20 years.
Dodgers! Twenty years!
This is what can happen when you exchange Pedro Martinez and Mike Piazza, and when Rupert Murdoch buys your team for television content, not the championships.
Look at the full start of the Dodgers Clayton Kershaw launcher against the Giants of San Francisco at the Dodger Stadium Friday evening.
This is what can happen when Frank McCourt buys your team and returns the Dodgers to the series of league championships, but pays the advice of a Russian physicist who knew almost nothing about baseball but said that he had “diagnosed the disconnections” in the organization while watching on television and channeling his energy towards the improvement of the team.
This is what can happen when McCourt takes the Dodgers to the bankruptcy court to face the major baseball league and – three days after Kershaw defeated Lécecum for this 20th victory – the commissioner’s office threatens to launch the League team.
These 2011 Dodgers had no chance, ahead of Minnesota twins and overwhelmed by Milwaukee Brewers. Kershaw launched well enough to endure, and Mark Walter and the current Dodgers property group made sure that he did not have to endure the octobres in which he launched a short rest because the team had little choice.
“It is great that he was a faithful,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “He saw the organization in which she was, and there were times of Lean 18 years ago.
“To see where we are at 10, 12 years old and where we went, he was there in the middle.”
The Dodgers launcher, Clayton Kershaw, delivers against the giants on Friday evening.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
It is easy to take a look at the back of the Kershaw baseball card, or its baseball reference page, and choose the statistics that you like to illustrate its grandeur. He directed the league on average of the four years of deserved racing. He won the Cy Young Prize three times and finished in the top five for seven consecutive years.
It was so dominant that when he did not touch the Colorado rockies in 2014, the title of Times read “Clayton Kershaw of Dodgers first launched without strike”, because of course, he launched another.
It could have been the only thing he did not do. His 2.54-made career average is lower than Cy Young’s career era himself. No launcher in the past 100 years has launched as many sleeves with a better time.
During his last season, when a 90 mph quick ball was a rarity, Kershaw (10-2) has always led the dodgers to percentage of victories. He did not win on Friday, but the dodgers did.
These dodgers, unlike the dodgers of his early years, had superstars to recover it. After Kershaw left the match at the top of the fifth, the dodgers followed by a round, Ohtani and Betts dominated at the bottom of the Channel to place the dodgers to stay.
When a lifter enters the game, the advertiser of the public address of the Dodger Todd Leitz stadium simply presents the new launcher. Friday, before introducing Edgardo Henriquez, Leitz delivered a preface and farewell appropriate in one.
“In relief,” he said, “Grand Clayton Kershaw.”
