Clayton Kershaw’s Five Most Remarkable Pitches

People have spent a lot of time defending playoff Clayton Kershaw. This has taken place because other people have spent a lot of time attacking playoff Clayton Kershaw. To the defenders, Kershaw is anything but unclutch. He’s been a victim, a victim of randomness and a victim of sample size. To the attackers, Kershaw hasn’t shown up. Not often enough, not like normal, regular-season Clayton Kershaw. There’s that fact of the 4.40 playoff ERA. That’s where Kershaw was for his career when he woke up Tuesday morning. It’s a number that one could dismiss, but it’s not a number that one could deny. When Kershaw had pitched, there were too many runs. Forget about any weaknesses or character flaws. The argument against playoff Kershaw was simple. The stats were right there.

The Dodgers would tell you that Kershaw was redeemed in the 2016 NLDS. That’s when he came out of the bullpen on one day of rest to close out the Nationals. Kershaw himself wasn’t satisfied. There’s only one way for Kershaw to be satisfied — he needs to win the World Series. He’s internalized all the playoff runs he’s allowed. He’s tired of the frustration, and he’s tired of the defeats. There’s one thing to be done to put it all to rest. Win it all, and it’s all taken care of. The history could finally be buried and dead.

Kershaw hasn’t erased the history just yet. Not for himself. The World Series wasn’t decided by Tuesday’s Game 1. But in the biggest game Kershaw’s ever thrown, nearly every pitch was sharp, and the Astros could come up with no answer. Kershaw drove the critics backward, forcing them to wonder if maybe he’s no pumpkin after all. Kershaw struck out 11 Astros hitters. He became the first pitcher to do so all season long, and he needed only 83 pitches. In 11 previous playoff games, the Astros had struck out against the opposing starter just 35 times combined. Kershaw rendered the league-leading lineup helpless, yielding three hits and a run, without a single walk. Kershaw was Kershaw, on October 24.

There are a million ways to memorialize a dominant start. You could recite all the numbers, or you could quote all the players. You could include video of all the swinging strikes, or of all the strikeouts. You could find out how many starts have been better, or you could simply write about what you saw. I’d like to write about what I saw. Not about everything — I’d like to write about a few pitches. Included below are not necessarily Kershaw’s best pitches from Game 1. Maybe they’re not the sexiest pitches. Instead, these are his most remarkable pitches. That’s subjective, I realize, but these are the pitches I’m still thinking about, some hours later. For 83 deliveries over seven innings, Kershaw was brilliant, executing almost every pitch out of his hand. Here are some of the pitches he threw.

Remarkable pitch no. 1

It’s important to recognize that no game is ever free of mistakes. No gem is ever free of mistakes, and no perfect game is ever actually perfect, depending on how you want to define it. There’s a relationship between how the pitcher executes and how the hitter executes, sure, but sometimes it can be loose, and unpredictably forgiving. Kershaw, Tuesday, wasn’t perfect with all of his fastballs. He made a mistake with a first-pitch fastball to Carlos Correa in the second. He made a mistake on the fourth-inning fastball that Alex Bregman hit out. Some pitches weren’t great. That’s how it is.

But there’s thinking about every individual pitch, and there’s thinking about how all the individual pitches came together. The fastball to Brian McCann above, I think, is fairly representative of Kershaw’s whole start. It’s located with expert precision at the bottom edge of the zone, close enough to the target that a strike would be earned. That’s a textbook example of a pitcher’s pitch, and to make matters worse for McCann, it followed a slider in the zone for strike one. So McCann had seen the break, but then he’d also seen a perfect low fastball, meaning he’d have to protect against another perfect low fastball. The 0-and-2 pitch was a slider, lower than the fastball was. McCann had little choice but to swing, and he was lucky to make the weak contact he made. The fastball had set him up for an easy out.

McCann, of course, didn’t see the only perfect low fastball. That’s kind of the point. But he saw one of the earlier ones. It worked perfectly with the slider that preceded it.

Remarkable pitch no. 2

Just for a fleeting instant, the Astros had a chance to get something going. Bregman had homered to lead off the fourth, and then Jose Altuve came up and worked a 3-and-1 count. We don’t talk that much about players and count-specific splits, but this year, after getting to 3-and-1, Altuve had baseball’s third-highest wRC+. And Kershaw, incidentally, had the lowest rate of 3-and-1 pitches for any starter in the game. Kershaw just doesn’t see many three-ball counts. Altuve is a wizard in three-ball counts. Altuve was looking to reach, while Kershaw was looking to nip any would-be rally in the bud.

Classically, 3-and-1 is a fastball count. Not so, for Kershaw — it wasn’t a surprise to see him throw a slider. He would’ve had a good sense that Altuve would be in swing mode, because he’s not a hitter known for his passivity. Altuve would be looking for anything to drive, and Kershaw had to be careful. So he dropped a slider at the bottom edge. He threw another pitcher’s pitch, in a hitter’s count, and though Altuve swung, he chopped the ball foul. It was a pitch close enough to the edge it would be hard to square up, but it was a pitch close enough to the middle it would be a probable strike if it were taken. Kershaw forced Altuve into a full count.

This season, over 54 plate appearances in which Altuve got the count to 3-and-1, he wound up striking out just one time. That gave him the second-lowest such strikeout rate in baseball. Kershaw turned 3-and-1 into 3-and-2. The next pitch was another slider in a similar spot. Altuve was less tempted, yet he was called out with strike three. And so a potential rally was thwarted.

Remarkable pitch no. 3

Initially, I thought I was going to use the curveball that Kershaw employed to strike out Marwin Gonzalez looking in the third. It was one of those classic, picture-perfect knee-bucklers, and I was excited even to just prepare the damn video. But as I thought more about it, the more I was led to this curveball that put away Carlos Correa. I think there’s just more to say. I think it might be more reflective of how well Kershaw was pitching.

Pitching is about two things: locating well, and messing up the hitters’ timing. When Kershaw froze Gonzalez, he did both. He snapped a two-strike curve off that fell in front of Gonzalez’s knees. Contrast that with the curve above, thrown in an 0-and-2 count. I don’t actually think Kershaw located where he wanted to. I imagine he wanted this curveball to stay down, perhaps even below the zone. What happened is that the curve stayed up, and, for an 0-and-2 pitch, it was frighteningly close to being middle-middle. Good hitters protect with two strikes. Hitters like Correa know how to defend themselves with two strikes. When you’re ahead 0-and-2, the last thing you want to do is leave a pitch over the middle. There’s no excuse for making such a hittable mistake. Yet Kershaw grooved a curveball, and Correa…watched it into the glove. And then he walked back to his bench. Kershaw’s timing was so disruptive that Correa locked up in a swinging count. Kershaw won here with timing alone.

Remarkable pitch no. 4

Josh Reddick managed all of one hit in the ALCS. He had, in fairness, come through with the first hit of the game against Kershaw in the third, but Reddick was also being booed by the Dodger fan audience. Reddick was playing under a certain amount of pressure, then, and when he came up in the fifth, he took a strike on a well-located fastball away. Then he took another strike on another well-located fastball away. Reddick stood there shaking his head, because he didn’t agree with the call, but there was nothing to be done about it. He was in an 0-and-2 hole against the best starting pitcher on the planet, and he was throwing left-handed. Reddick would’ve tried to clear his mind as he looked out, waiting for the next delivery. He saw Kershaw’s leg go up, with his glove and throwing hand over his head. Everything was looking as Reddick expected. Kershaw reached back, while Reddick tightened his grip on the bat. Then Kershaw’s left arm came all the way around. It was lower and more off to the side than it usually was. What was that about? For a moment — one moment too long — Reddick wondered.

Remarkable pitch no. 5

I’m cheating. This pitch is actually two pitches.

 

The first pitch is a first-pitch fastball to Yulieski Gurriel with two out and none on in the top of the fourth. The second pitch is a 1-and-1 curveball to Alex Bregman with two out and none on in the top of the sixth. Both of the pitches are called balls. Both of the pitches are correctly called balls. They miss the lower boundary by an inch or three. There’s nothing otherwise notable about the pitches; they don’t miss their spots horribly. In fact, they barely miss their spots at all. It would be easy enough to see either pitch drawing a swing. Yet what sets these pitches apart is Kershaw’s immediate reaction. As the pitches sail below the strike zone, Kershaw turns his head and screams at himself.

It’s not the first time Kershaw’s ever done this. It’s a fact of many, if not most of his starts. And, of course, any number of pitchers around the league have been known to get angry when they fail to execute. But think again about how Kershaw’s responding, and think again about what these pitches were. Kershaw’s entitled to get mad at himself. We’re all entitled to get mad at ourselves. Kershaw was mad because he threw what might be interpreted as quality balls. They were potentially grave mistakes only to the man responsible for throwing them. Kershaw holds himself to a certain standard.

Perfectionism isn’t always a trait to be envied. It is most often a burdensome obstacle, a hindrance for those who struggle with perspective. No human can ever be perfect, and so perfection is unachievable. For many of us, we should settle for trying to be good, or trying to be great. Consistency there is enough of a challenge. For many of us. Clayton Kershaw is an exception. He’s a perfectionist, because he’s mastered the next level below.