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Buck Showalter reminds Dodgers fans Boston cheated Clayton Kershaw too

ByAdam Weinrib|
BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 23: Clayton Kershaw #22 of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts as he is taken out of the game during the fifth inning against the Boston Red Sox in Game One of the 2018 World Series at Fenway Park on October 23, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 23: Clayton Kershaw #22 of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts as he is taken out of the game during the fifth inning against the Boston Red Sox in Game One of the 2018 World Series at Fenway Park on October 23, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

Buck Showalter made sure everyone remembered that Clayton Kershaw has gotten cheated in TWO World Series starts before Dodgers-Rays Game 6.

Dodgers ace (OK, fine: Dodgers legend) Clayton Kershaw has had one hell of a 2020 World Series.

Twice in two starts, Dave Roberts has pulled Kershaw early in an effort to maintain his sterling lines, doing his part to help reverse the dueling narratives that he usually hangs his lefty out to dry, and that his lefty just isn’t the same guy in the playoffs.

But it’s necessary that we remember how Kershaw got to this point in his career. Has he been utterly dominant in the postseason? Of course not! And some of his high-profile meltdowns (2014 Game 1 against the Cardinals) were definitely due to an inability to handle fatigue, and that falls on his shoulders. But his World Series numbers, specifically, are inflated improperly, not only by Game 5 of the 2017 WS against the proven cheaters in Houston, but also Game 1 of the next World Series at Fenway Park.

Leave it to MLB Network’s Buck Showalter to “insinuate” a little bit to the national audience ahead of Game 6. Rarely, if ever, do you hear this accusation in the mainstream!

You think Kershaw and his new teammate Mookie Betts ever talk about this?

Even though Major League Baseball claimed the Red Sox scheme in 2018 was lesser than whatever the Astros concocted, the facts don’t lie. Alex Cora went right from Houston to Boston that offseason, immediately won 108 games, and then got a video guy fired as a scapegoat for the operation there.

We’re not sure exactly what was happening at Fenway, but it wasn’t completely authentic.

And, of course, Kershaw was entering that start with momentum — he had just dominated at the tail end of the NLCS.

But when he got on the mound to face the Red Sox? Four innings, seven hits, five earned runs, three walks.

An awful lot like the 4.2 innings pitched and six earned runs the year prior, huh?

Thanks to Mr. Showalter for doing the work and making sure the public knows just how tarnished Kershaw’s legacy was by a pair of proven cheaters. Not conjecture! Both proven.

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