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Clayton Kershaw chased in 1st inning as Dodgers…

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Los Angeles Dodgers |
Clayton Kershaw chased in 1st inning as Dodgers lose NLDS opener to Diamondbacks

Kershaw retires just one of the eight batters he faces while giving up six runs and the Dodgers fall, 11-2, one of the worst postseason losses in franchise history

Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw wipes his face after giving up an RBI double to the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Evan Longoria (not pictured) during the first inning of Game 1 of their National League Division Series on Saturday night at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw allowed six runs in one-third of an inning before being removed. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw wipes his face after giving up an RBI double to the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Evan Longoria (not pictured) during the first inning of Game 1 of their National League Division Series on Saturday night at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw allowed six runs in one-third of an inning before being removed. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
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Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, left, and coach Bob Geren look on from the dugout after the Arizona Diamondbacks scored six runs during the first inning of Game 1 of their National League Division Series on Saturday night at Dodger Stadium. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

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LOS ANGELES — Hall of Fame careers do not always end heroically.

Willie Mays stumbled in the outfield while playing for the New York Mets during the 1973 World Series and it has become the archetype – exaggerated though it has been over the years – of the great player who stayed longer than his skills.

Clayton Kershaw has not said this is his last season. He defied a shoulder injury that limited him over the final two months of the regular season and robbed him of velocity to earn his 32nd postseason start.

If it is his farewell, though, the Dodgers’ 11-2 loss in Game 1 of the National League Division Series on Saturday night was Kershaw’s embarrassing stumble.

He faced just eight batters. The first six all reached base and scored. He retired just one batter before Dodgers manager Dave Roberts mercifully pulled him from the game.

“Just disappointing. Embarrassing,” Kershaw said after the game. “You just feel like you let everybody down, guys in the whole organization that look to you to pitch well in Game 1. It’s just embarrassing, really. I just feel like I let everybody down.

“It’s a tough way to start the postseason. Obviously, we still have a chance at this thing. But that was – yeah, that wasn’t the way it should’ve started for me.”

Whether that is the way it will end remains to be seen.

Kershaw sat alone on the bench, his head down, as Emmet Sheehan got out of the inning then walked the length of the dugout and disappeared down the tunnel leading to the clubhouse, his teammates politely looking away.

Whether Kershaw emerges to pitch again for the Dodgers – this postseason or next year – is questionable. It is almost easier to imagine the Dodgers placing him on the injured list with his unspecified shoulder malady (thus making him ineligible if the Dodgers rebound to reach the NL Championship Series) than it is to picture them sending Kershaw back to the mound for a Game 4 or 5 and risking more of this in a potential elimination game.

But Kershaw insisted that he feels “fine” – the same way he has brushed off questions about his shoulder since returning from the IL.

“There’s nothing health-related here,” he said. “Just bad pitching.”

Roberts acknowledged Kershaw’s performance was “shocking” but said the Dodgers’ pitching plans for the rest of the series will not change as a result.

“No, no, it doesn’t,” Roberts said. “He’s going to pitch Game 4.”

Ketel Marte started Saturday’s beating with a rocket into the left-center field gap. James Outman got there but overran the ball, reached back and had it go off his glove for a double (which could have been scored an error).

“I think my nerves kind of got the best of me. I was just a little tight that first inning and I didn’t set the tone very well for us,” said Outman, one of five rookies on the Dodgers’ NLDS roster.

“It kind of just hit the heel of my glove. It got on me a little quicker than I wanted to and I just couldn’t come up with it.”

Corbin Carroll drove Marte in with an RBI single. In quick order, Tommy Pham singled, Christian Walker doubled off the bullpen gate in left field and Gabriel Moreno launched a 419-foot drive into the night for a three-run home run (the first of four Diamondbacks homers in the game).

The five hits had exit velocities of 115.7, 109.6, 99.4, 105.7 and 110.8 mph on the home run. Anything 95 mph or higher is considered a ‘hard-hit’ ball by Statcast measures. Kershaw gave up another one (96.7 mph) but got an out on the ground ball to Miguel Rojas. A walk and another double followed before Roberts could get to the mound.

“We just missed in the zone,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “When they’re aggressive and you’re missing in spots they hit the ball, it’s usually not the right recipe.”

It was the first time in Kershaw’s career that he allowed more than five ‘hard-hit’ balls in any inning. The Diamondbacks showed no fear, swinging at 24 of the 25 strikes Kershaw managed in his 35-pitch night and averaging 105.2 mph in exit velocity when they put it in play.

“I think that most teams typically swing early against me. I try to get ahead of guys,” Kershaw said of the Diamondbacks’ aggressiveness. “Obviously I didn’t make some great pitches and then sometimes I thought I did make some good ones and they hit them, too. I don’t know what else to say. It’s just tough.

“I think most teams typically swing early against me. I try to get ahead of guys. Obviously, I didn’t make some great pitches and then sometimes I thought I did make some good ones and they hit them, too. I don’t know what else to say. It’s just tough.

“Didn’t feel great. Yeah, didn’t feel great.”

To the litany of Kershaw’s October miseries include these new additions.

He is the first pitcher in postseason history to allow five runs and five hits before recording an out, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

And he is the third starting pitcher in postseason history to record one out or none while allowing six earned runs or more, joining Mike Foltynewicz of the Braves (against the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2019 NLDS) and Gil Heredia of the Oakland A’s (against the New York Yankees in the 2000 ALDS), according to OptaStats.

The Diamondbacks continued against Emmet Sheehan, the rookie called in to stop the bleeding. He gave up a home run to Carroll in the second inning and two more runs before the Diamondbacks tired of ripping extra-base hits, at least for a while.

While Kershaw making painful history, Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly reversed some personal history.

Kelly came into the game 0-11 with a 5.49 ERA in 16 career starts against the Dodgers. According to OptaStats that is the most career losses without a win against a single opponent when starting a playoff game against them.

Making the first postseason appearance of his career, Kelly breezed through the shell-shocked Dodgers. He allowed just three hits over 6⅓ innings, taking a shutout into the seventh before handing the big lead over to the bullpen.

“Honestly, at that minute I’m just trying to enjoy it,” Kelly said of being staked to a 6-0 lead before he ever took the mound. “I’m watching our guys beat up on one of the best pitchers that we’ve ever seen in our lives. And watching them do it in the first game I’ve ever pitched in the playoffs.”

The Diamondbacks hit seven balls with exit velocities above 95 mph in the first inning – the Dodgers had five total off Kelly. Three of those went for outs.

“I don’t think anybody in the baseball world was expecting that,” Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman said of Kershaw’s start. “But the next time Clayton Kershaw is on that mound we’ll be just as confident again. Hopefully, we can get him back on that mound.”

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