Los Angeles Dodgers: Clayton Kershaw’s last stand?

You wanted be there because it could be his last start in 2021. With a looming one and done playoff game, and the uncertainty of free agency in the offseason, there was even a thought that it could be Clayton Kershaw’s final innings with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

After five outs, it ended up worse than that.

This writer watched as manager Dave Roberts walked to the mound with the Dodgers trainer in tow, and removed Kershaw from the game. Fans gave Kershaw a standing ovation as he walked off with the ball in his hand, a salute to the wounded warrior who may have walked off his honored place on the pitching mound for the perhaps the last time.

As a fan, it’s hard to be objective when the greatest pitcher of his generation — who plays for your team — meekly has to leave a pitching start. It’s even worse contemplating all the scenarios that come afterwards.

If it’s another forearm injury, does it lead to elbow damage? Is Kershaw out all of October? Are the Dodgers now going to have to pitch a bullpen game in a crucial point in a series? How badly does this hamper the team’s chances at a repeat World Series title?

We selfishly are thinking about the now and forgetting those crucial questions about the later. Will Kershaw rehab the injury for a year and re-sign in 2023? Will he retire young like the man he is often compared to, Sandy Koufax? Will the Dodgers move on, too impatient to wait for a comeback, and allow Kershaw to go somewhere else?

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Whether it’s now or later, those questions will be answered, but we fans are left with the lingering image of a defeated Kershaw walking off the mound. Even if there’s a forthcoming happy ending, we’ll never shake that.

In the past, Kershaw was beaten by the cruel ghosts of October failures, but after finally winning a World Series ring last year, it’s the injuries that have come for him. Perhaps we can blame the overuse in his prime or the playoff starts on short rest, but that was what he wanted. He’d earned the opportunity to always be handed the ball when his team needed him most.

There’s irony in the way Kershaw’s season ended. After so many years of shouldering the burden of lifting the team on his back in hopes of October glory, the team will now have to lift Kershaw up and try to get him another ring as he sits on the sidelines.

As for me, if this was the last time Clayton Kershaw pitched for the Dodgers, then I would rather remember last October. Kershaw running out of the bullpen at Globe Life Field, eyes skyward, hands upward, running towards his teammates to embrace them as what he always deserved to be…a champion.

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