The silver-haired man in the blue sports coat standing inside the visitor’s clubhouse Friday is known for his postseason glory. But Sandy Koufax had his October struggles too. Not every one of those World Series games was a work of brilliance. His fastballs were hit. His curves flopped in the dirt and he watched in horror as other teams’ players thundered across home plate.
In the aftermath of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 4-3 Game 1 National League Division Series victory over Washington, the great Koufax walked past Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw who was draped in towels. Their eyes met for a moment; the pitcher many believe to be the game’s greatest and the 28-year-old man who might be the closest comparison to him today. And Koufax gave Kershaw a knowing look and a tiny nod as if to say: sometimes you have to grind out these postseason games.
For all of his three Cy Young Awards and regular-season dominance, Kershaw has struggled in the biggest moments. His playoff record going into Friday was 2-6 with a 4.59 ERA. Nothing like Koufax, who was part of four world champion Dodgers teams and left baseball with a 0.95 World Series ERA. His imperfection has been such a question that his narrative has become one of a great starter who cannot win in October.
On Friday he was far from great again. As in the past, he labored through his innings. His pitches were not sharp. Balls were hit hard. He looked weary on a muggy early evening. Nearly every out was an ordeal. He gave up three runs in five innings on 101 pitches. This was not the regular-season Kershaw who has finished nine innings on less than 100 pitches. But he won. He won a night when he seemed to have nothing but his name and about two good curveballs that came at opportune times And somehow that made him seem much more like Koufax than a guy stumbling to get through five innings.
He seemed almost giddy as he stood in the Dodgers clubhouse after Koufax had retreated to manager Dave Roberts’ office. He wore an untucked button-up shirt and flopped around like a schoolboy. He laughed. His head bobbed. He pitched as bad as he had all year and it felt great.
“It feels great to win in this situation,” he said. “If I had pitched six shutout innings and we lost it wouldn’t be as great a feeling. That’s the best thing about this time of year.”
In the playoffs, brilliance isn’t as important as survival. Maybe he has been so good for so long in regular seasons that this lesson has been hard to grasp. He wasn’t great. At times he wasn’t even good. But he fought through his mistakes, finding the right pitch at the most vital moment to minimize the damage.
“He grinded through, that’s all you can ask for,” said Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager.
So many times over the years Kershaw has carried the Dodgers only to falter in the postseason. This time the Dodgers carried him, scoring four runs off Max Scherzer, the man who will likely win this year’s Cy Young Award. They did it rather easily with a first inning home run from Seager, a run-scoring single by Chase Utley and Justin Turner’s two-run home run. Then after Kershaw gave up his three runs during endless third and fourth innings, they refused to give up anything more. Relief pitchers Joe Blanton, Grant Dayton and Perdro Baez held Washington down until there was one out in the eight and then closer Kenley Jansen got the last four outs for a save.
It was the kind of opportunity he never gave Los Angeles in his previous implosions against St Louis in the 2013 and 2014 postseasons. He endured. Sometimes that’s all you have to do.
Several times on Friday Kershaw seemed to battle himself. He fretted whenever Nationals players got to second base, where they could peer into home plate and steal the catcher’s signs. He didn’t say if the Nats were deciphering the signals but he implied that something wasn’t right. This led to countless trips by catcher Yasmani Grandal to the mound to settle on changes of signs. These interruptions seemed to rattle him.
“I wanted to be in a rhythm,” he said, “but being on the same page is more important.”
He wouldn’t say if he thought he had unloaded some psychic burden by winning on Friday and yet he seemed relieved by something. The Dodgers have won four straight National League West titles but they only have one playoff series win to show for that time. Expectations are great. The pressure on Kershaw to be something better than he has been in October was there. He wasn’t great on Friday but he was good enough.
Sometimes that’s all Sandy Koufax was too.
