Wow, what a week in sports. USC defeats Michigan, a Dodger pitches a complete game for the first time in the postseason since 2004 and they sweep the Brewers to go to the World Series for the second consecutive year after being 0-6 against Milwaukee during the regular season. Perhaps Michael Conforto will be added to the roster and win MVP in the World Series.
Jeff Hershow Woodland Hills
While basically sleepwalking through the first three games of the NLCS, Shohei Ohtani saves his best for last. He goes “Hollywood” and produces the single greatest performance in MLB history as the final curtain comes down on the Milwaukee Brewers and extends the Dodgers’ magical journey to repeat as World Series champions.
Stay tuned for the sequel!
Rick Solomon Lake Balboa
It’s a bird, it’s a plane … no, it’s superhuman Shohei! He pitches a shutout, strikes out 10, and hits three tape-measure home runs. Wow!
Marty Zweben Palos Verdes Estates
In the history of Major League Baseball, has there ever been a player like Shohei Ohtani? I don’t think so. Shohei is the best ever. Enough said.
Chris Sorce Fountain Valley
Now that the Dodgers have effortlessly powered their way back into the World Series, it’s quite obvious that $400 million actually does buy what it used to!
Jack Wolf Westwood
At last, the second coming of the Dodgers has happened. We’ve been waiting for it and hoping for it, and now it’s here. Great offense, great defense and superb pitching. Our new chant should be “all the way L.A., all the way.”
Cheryl Creek Anaheim
Statistically speaking, there is a case to be made in comparing the postseason accomplishments of Sandy Koufax and Blake Snell. From a historical perspective, there is no comparison.
Koufax is a legendary lifetime Dodger who pitched until he physically was no longer able to do so. Snell famously refused to take the ball in his last Giants start to save himself for a free agency money windfall.
Bill Waxman Simi Valley
Stop the presses! The world is still spinning on its axis! Holy Toledo, Dave Roberts finally figured out a starting pitcher’s arm doesn’t fall off after 100 pitches. Too bad he didn’t come to that revelation during Blake Snell’s Game 1 performance, but better late than never as the saying goes.
Years ago, when Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax were at the top of the Dodgers’ pitching rotation, Drysdale missed a game to attend to some personal business. Koufax pitched a no-hitter that day.
When told about the achievement, Drysdale had one question: “Did he win?”
That’s a fair question for the current Dodgers pitching staff as well. Because Monday, for the second time in three days, the Dodgers took a no-hitter into the ninth inning.
They lost the first one. And while they won the second, it wasn’t easy with the Colorado Rockies bringing the tying run to the plate three times before Tanner Scott got the last out to preserve a 3-1 win at Dodger Stadium.
The victory kept the Dodgers a game ahead of the San Diego Padres in the National League West with 18 games left in the regular season.
It was Tyler Glasnow who flirted with history Monday, pitching seven hitless innings before turning the game over to relievers Blake Treinen and Scott. On Saturday, a similar scenario unfolded when Yoshinobu Yamamoto came within an out of a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles before giving up a home run to Jackson Holliday.
He left at that point, only to see Treinen and Scott give up three more runs in a 4-3 Dodger loss.
So when Scott gave up a double to Ryan Ritter to start the ninth — ending the no-hitter and drawing boos from those who remained from the crowd of 48,433 — manager Dave Roberts said he hoped he wasn’t witnessing déjà vu all over again.
“I try to not think like that,” he said.
Given how the Dodgers bullpen has struggled recently, it was hard not to.
Scott, however, quickly settled down, retiring the next two batters on soft grounders before Hunter Goodman lined out to Max Muncy at third to end the game and give Glasnow (2-3) his first win since March.
It was a victory that was long overdue.
Glasnow pitched six no-hit innings his last time out only to wind up with the loss when the Dodgers (80-64) failed to score behind him. That’s become an all-too-common problem for Glasnow, who has the second-lowest ERA in the Dodgers rotation but has received the weakest support with an average of 3½ runs per start.
Mookie Betts hits a two-run single in the seventh inning during the Dodgers’ 3-1 win over the Rockies on Monday.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
The Dodgers’ hitters didn’t even match that modest number Monday. But when Mookie Betts delivered a two-run single in the seventh, breaking a 1-1 tie, it left Glasnow in position for the win.
“It’s always good to score runs,” he said with a smile.
Smiles have been hard to come by after Glasnow’s starts. In only three of his 15 starts have the Dodgers trailed by more than a run when he has exited the game. Yet in five of those starts, the Dodgers didn’t even score a run behind him, which explains why he went more than 160 days between wins.
“It is what it is,” he shrugged. “But yeah, they put some at bats together, and we ended up winning.”
Glasnow, who was held out of his last scheduled start with a sore back, was pitching for the first time in 10 days and was strong from the start, striking out the side in the first — although he needed 18 pitches to do it. He fanned the side again in the sixth, but in between he gave up a second-inning run on Jordan Beck’s leadoff walk, a stolen base and two long outs, the second Kyle Farmer’s sacrifice fly to the left-field wall.
What he didn’t give up was a hit. Glasnow said he was aware he had a no-hitter as the game progressed, but he also knew he probably wouldn’t be allowed to finish it.
“My pitch count was pretty high,” said the right-hander, who finished with a season-high 105, striking out 11 and walking two. “I don’t know how many pitches I was going to be allowed to throw.”
Also working against him were his two stints on the injured list this season and his recent back issues.
“Obviously I want to stay in, no matter what my pitch count is,” he said. “[But] given my, like, track record, I kind of understand why. I respect the decision.”
For five innings, Colorado starter Chase Dollander, who came in 2-12 with a 6.77 ERA, nearly matched Glasnow. The Dodgers didn’t get their first baserunner until the third inning and didn’t have a hit until the fifth, when Michael Conforto led off with a single to left.
Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow delivers in the fifth inning Monday against the Rockies.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Dollander faced just three batters over the minimum before leaving with an apparent injury after walking Ben Rortvedt to start the sixth. Reliever Juan Mejia walked the first batter he faced and an out later Freddie Freeman bounced a high-hopper over Farmer and down the right-field line for a tying double.
An inning later the Dodgers scored two more off Angel Chivilli (1-5) to go in front. With two out and a runner on first, Shohei Ohtani doubled to right to bring Betts to the plate. After falling behind 0-2, he picked out a belt-high slider and drove it into the center to break the tie.
With the Dodgers safely in front and Glasnow out of the game, the drama turned to the no-hitter. There have been 22 combined no-hitters in major league history, with the last one by the Dodgers coming against the Padres in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2018.
That appeared in reach when Treinen breezed through the eighth. But Ritter, the Rockies’ No. 9 hitter, one-hopped the wall in left on Scott’s second pitch of the ninth. The ball appeared catchable off the bat, but Alex Call, inserted for defensive purposes, turned the wrong way, costing him any chance to make a play.
Scott retired the side on two ground outs and a liner to Muncy before celebrating with Rortvedt, who was called up from the minors Thursday and has come within four outs of catching two no-hitters in his first three starts.
“It’s not me, it’s these guys,” he said. “I’m doing my homework as much as I can, trying to be prepared. The pitchers are prepared. It’s just the fruit of that labor at that point.
It wasn’t so much the culmination of a career as it was another signpost pointing the way to the Hall of Fame.
It certainly wasn’t the last pitch Clayton Kershaw will ever throw for the Dodgers, but it will likely be among the most memorable.
Because when Chicago White Sox third baseman Vinny Capra took a 1-2 slider for a strike to end the sixth inning Wednesday night, Kershaw became just the 20th pitcher in major league history to record 3,000 strikeouts.
More people have flown to the moon than have struck out 3,000 major league hitters. And for Kershaw, who has been chasing history since he threw his first big-league pitch as a skinny 20-year-old, entering such an elite club will be a big piece of his legacy.
Only now he has the wisdom and the grace to realize it was never about him in the first place.
“It’s an incredible list. I’m super, super grateful to be a part of it,” Kershaw said. “But if you don’t have anybody to celebrate with, it’s just doesn’t matter.”
Kershaw would know since he’s one of the most decorated players in history. Twice a 20-game winner, a five-time ERA champion and two-time world champion, he’s won three Cy Young Awards, was a league MVP and is a 10-time all-star.
“The individual stuff,” he repeated “is only as important as the people around you.”
So while Kershaw stood out when reached the 3K milestone on the 100th and final pitch he threw in the Dodgers’ 5-4 win, he refused to stand apart, pausing on his way off the field to point at his family sitting in their usual seats in the front row of the loge section. He then accepted hugs from teammates Mookie Betts and Kiké Hernández.
But he saved his warmest embrace for manager Dave Roberts, who bounded up the dugout steps to greet him.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” said Roberts, who has guided Kershaw through doubts and disappointments, through high points and lows in their 10 years together.
“I’m one of the few people in uniform that has been through them,” Roberts said. “That was kind of what the embrace was.”
Kershaw, 37, is just the fourth left-hander to reach 3,000 strikeouts but more important, he said, is the fact he’s just the second in a century, after Bob Gibson, to do it with the same team. No pitcher, in fact, has spent more years in a Dodger uniform that Kershaw.
“I don’t know if I put a ton of stock in being with one team early on,” he said. “Over time you get older and appreciate one organization a little bit more. Doc [Roberts] stuck with me, too. It hasn’t been all roses, I know that.
“So there’s just a lot of mutual respect and I’m super grateful now, looking back, to get to say that I spent my whole career here. And I will spend my whole career here.”
Kershaw struck out the first batter he faced in his Dodger debut 18 years ago, getting the Cardinals’ Skip Schumaker to wave at a 1-2 pitch. It was the first of three strikeouts he would record in his first big-league inning. So even from the start, the K in Kershaw — the scorebook symbol for a strikeout — stood out more than than the rest of the name.
In between Schumaker and Capra, Kershaw fanned nearly 1,000 different hitters, from CJ Abrams and Bobby Abreu to Ryan Zimmerman and Barry Zito.
He’s stuck out (Jason) Castro and (Buddy) Kennedy, Elvis (Andrus) and (Alex) Presley and (Billy) Hamilton and (Alex) Jackson. He’s whiffed (Scott) Cousins and brothers (Bengie and Yadier Molina), a (Chin-lung) Hu and a Yu (Darvish), a Cook (Aaron) and a (Jeff) Baker as well as a Trout (Mike) and multiple Marlins (Miami).
Former Giant Brandon Belt was Kershaw’s most frequent victim, striking out 30 times in 62 at-bats. Fewer than 50 batters have faced him at least five times without striking out, according to Baseball Reference.
Along the way Kershaw’s unique windup, the right knee pausing as he lifts both hands just above his cap, has become an instantly recognizable silhouette for a generation of Dodger fans.
There’s only one other left-hander in team history that can compare with Kershaw, yet he and Sandy Koufax are so different the comparisons are more contrasts than anything.
Kershaw has been brilliant over the entirety of his 18-year career, winning 10 or more games 12 times. He’s never finished a season with a losing record and his career ERA of 2.52 is the lowest of the last 105 years for pitchers who are thrown at least 1,500 innings. Even at 37, he’s unbeaten in four decisions.
Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw walks off the mound after recording his 3,000th career strikeout as right fielder Andy Pages, left, and first baseman Freddie Freeman, right, react behind him.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Koufax was 36-40 with an ERA above 4.00 through his first six seasons. And while Koufax’s career was ended by injury before his 31st birthday, Kershaw has pushed through repeated problems with his back, shoulder, knee, toe, elbow, pelvis and forearm.
Only Don Sutton has won more games in a Dodger uniform than the 216 that belong to Kershaw, who will soon be enshrined next to Koufax and Sutton in the Hall of Fame.
“Early on they were talking about this next Sandy Koufax guy, this big left-hander. Really didn’t have an idea where the ball was going, but pretty special,” said Roberts, who retired as a player after Kershaw’s rookie season. “It’s much better to be wearing the same uniform as him.”
But Roberts has seen the other side, when the young promise gives way to pitfalls. He’s seen Kershaw battle so many injuries, he’s spent nearly as much time on the injured list as in the rotation over the past five seasons. Alongside the brilliance, he’s seen the uncertainty.
So with Kershaw approaching history Wednesday, Roberts loosened the leash, letting him go back to the mound for the sixth inning despite having thrown 92 pitches, his most in more than two years.
“I wanted to give Clayton every opportunity,” he said. “You could see the emotion that he had today, trying to get that third strike. But I think it just happened the way it’s supposed to happen, in the sense that it was the third out [and] we got a chance to really celebrate him.”
Each time Kershaw got to two strikes, something he did to 15 of the 27 hitters he faced, “I said a few Hail Marys” Roberts said.
“It’s the last box for Clayton to check in his tremendous career,” he added, saying he doubted many more pitchers will ever reach 3,000 strikeouts. “You’ve got to stay healthy, you’ve got to be good early in your career, you’ve got to be good for a long time.”
And Kershaw has been all of that.
That, Roberts said, was behind the second long hug he and his pitcher shared in the dugout Wednesday night as a highlight reel of Kershaw’s career played on the video boards above both outfield pavilions. The sellout crowd, which had long been on its feet, continuing cheering, eventually drawing Kershaw back out onto the field to doff his cap in appreciation.
“That ovation,” he said “was something that I’ll never forget, for sure.”
