Kershaw on loss: ‘Bad day. Déjà vu. All over again’ – USA TODAY
ST. LOUIS — Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw fell to a crouch, his shoulders slumped, his head lowered, clutching his knees with his hands.
His body completely turned away from the plate, he stared away toward center field, and never bothered to watch St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Matt Adams cross the plate with his go-ahead three-run homer.
He couldn’t even move.
Really, he could barely breathe.
It happened. Again. Taking the breath away from the game’s greatest pitcher.
“Bad day,” Kershaw said.
“Deja vu.
“All over again.”
The Cardinals once again delivered a sledgehammer to the Dodgers’ season, winning 3-2 to move on to the National League Championship Series.
Kershaw will be going home, and spending the winter, blaming himself.
“The season ended,” Kershaw said in the hallway outside the Dodgers’ clubhouse, “and I was a big part of the reason why.”
It’s unexplainable, really.
How can a man who went 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA during the regular season, twice get knocked around by the Cardinals, and end up taking responsibility for the Dodgers’ season coming to an abrupt end?
How can a guy go 44-13 with a 1.67 ERA since July 2012 against the rest of the baseball world, and 1-7 with a 5.69 ERA in eight starts against the Cardinals?
Kershaw will be awarded the National League Cy Young award next month, along with the MVP award too, but he’ll also carry the burden of a 1-5 record and 5.12 ERA in the postseason.
“It’s baseball,” Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis said. “I know people are going to point to the seventh innings of both games, but there are 12 other innings in there.”
Oh, that seventh inning.
Kershaw absolutely stymied the Cardinals in the first six innings of each of his starts, yielding a .079 batting average (3-38).
But in that ugly seventh? He gave up nine runs and a .818 batting average (9 for 11).
“I’ve had success against them,” Kershaw says, “it just seems like that one inning gets me every time. Obviously, that’s not success.
“I can’t explain it.”
Kershaw stood against the wall for 4 minutes, 29 seconds, somehow trying to explain it, but it was of no use.
Someone asked him how crushing it was watching Adams’ homer, the first left-hander to homer off his curveball during his entire career.
“Is that a real question?”
When asked again, Kershaw said, “Not great. Not great.”
“How long will this stay with you?
“I’ll let you know. Give me a call.”
And, again, he was asked about his feelings:
“What do you think?” he said. “Not good. That’s as far as I can go.”
Kershaw walked away. He had no more words.
You can’t blame Kershaw, who lost two of the Dodgers’ three games, while Cardinals rookie relieve Marco Gonzalez won two of their three games.
But, oh, you can surely blame his bosses.
How in the world can a team with the richest payroll in the land, nearly $250 million, not have a single reliever they can count on besides closer Kenley Jansen?
It was like building a Maserati and putting in a Ford Taurus engine.
Twice in the series, Kershaw was cruising in the seventh inning, with a 2-0 lead Tuesday and 6-2 advantage in Game 1.
Twice, he came away empty-handed, with the Dodgers losing both games.
This night, it will be Adams dancing in his head.
He ripped into an 0-1 curveball, Kershaw’s 103rd pitch, sending it deep into the Cardinals’ bullpen. It was Adams’ first homer off a lefty since July 7.
“I don’t think I touched the ground the whole way around the bases,” Adams said.
Sure, it was easy to blame Dodgers manager Don Mattingly for keeping Kershaw in the game, considering he was on short rest, but who’s kidding who?
You going to take Kershaw out when he’s pitching a one-hit shutout? He had retired eight of the last nine batters he faced, striking out four of them.
“He felt good,” Mattingly said. “He was kind of cruising along. Again, we know it’s short rest, but we’re talking at that point about three hitters.
“It goes back to the same question – is there anybody better, even on short rest? – and even where he was at that point.”
Mattingly couldn’t say it Tuesday evening, but he simply had no choice to leave in Kershaw.
Just like he had no choice in Game 1.
And this isn’t the ’60s or ’70s. Closers don’t go three innings anymore; getting the ball to Jansen is a problem the Dodgers never solved.
So Mattingly stuck with Kershaw, and was torched each time by the decision, leaving a proud organization looking inward.
The Dodgers talked softly, and slowly dressed, knowing this will be the last time many will be together. Mark Walter, the Dodgers’ majority owner, left the clubhouse quickly, even helping push an equipment cart down the hallways. President Stan Kasten stood by the coaches office, simply watching. It was as if they still were in shock.
“It’s awful, just devastating,” said Ellis, who hit .538 in the series. “It’s going to pile onto last year [when the Dodgers lost to the Cardinals in the NLCS]. It just brings up thoughts of last year again.
“Familiar setting.
“And it just kind of rehashed those old memories, as well.
“You know you’re close, but at the same time, you’re still not there.”
There will be changes.
You don’t spend $240 million to build a franchise that can’t get out of the division series.
Maybe those whispers of general manager Ned Colletti taking the fall will come to fruition,
Maybe it will be Mattingly.
Maybe it be a bunch of guys you never heard of.
But no one is safe after this postseason disaster.
“It’s just so a tough thing to swallow,” Dodgers right fielder Matt Kemp said. “We left everything out there. But they were the better team.
“It’ll hurt the most when we’re home and watching the other teams still playing baseball.”
The Dodgers, taking the slow, painful walk around the Busch Stadium corridor into a winter unknown, had to pass the Cardinals’ clubhouse on the way to their team bus.
All they could hear was the screaming and revelry, and the strong scent of champagne.
The Cardinals are going back to the National League Championship Series, for the fourth consecutive year.
The Dodgers are going home early, once again, without a World Series trophy for the 26th consecutive year.
“It’s devastating more than anything,” Ellis said. “It’s just so sudden and abrupt. I’m still struggling to process it.”
Once again.
GALLERY: NLDS – CARDINALS vs. DODGERS
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