‘Let’s see him do it in the postseason’

By Jon Weisman

Now that Clayton Kershaw is pitching the way everyone expects him to — which is to say, completely out of this world — the slings and arrows have been reduced to one lone sling.

The postseason.

It’s a credit to Kershaw that his latest accomplishments are so par for his course that some people don’t care about any of it because of the calendar. And Kershaw would be the first to take responsibility for not having finished more postseason starts with victory in hand.

But I’ll say this. It kills me to see fans near or far toss aside eight or nine shutout innings by Kershaw as irrelevant because it’s summer and not fall.

For one thing, Kershaw’s doesn’t deserve a reputation as a playoff goat. Let’s go through this again …

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October 8, 2009: In his first career postseason start, at age 21 in 2009, Kershaw held the Cardinals to two runs over 6 2/3 innings of Game 2 of the National League Division Series. George Sherrill, who threw 10 pitches in the game, got the win (the Matt Holliday game). Nevertheless, no one would have suggested then that Kershaw wasn’t up to the playoff challenge.

October 15, 2009: Playoff start No. 2 (Game 1 of the 2009 National League Championship Series) began with four shutout innings but did not end well. Taking a 1-0 into the fifth inning, Kershaw got Carlos Ruized with a three-run home run, then later surrendered a two-run double to Ryan Howard.

This was the only one of his first five playoff starts that wasn’t a quality start.

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October 3, 2013: In his first postseason start of 2013 — the first after Clayton Kershaw had really become Clayton Kershaw — the lefty won Game 1 of the NLDS going away, allowing one run in seven innings while striking out 12, the most by a Dodger playoff pitcher in 50 years. Again, no one in their right mind would suggest Kershaw couldn’t succeed or hadn’t succeeded in the playoffs.

October 7, 2013: In his next two playoff starts of 2013, Kershaw had a 0-1 record — with a 0.00 ERA.

Now really focus on this. The first thing people will say about Kershaw in the postseason is that he has only one career victory, ignoring how Adrian Gonzalez’s fourth-inning error derailed his six innings of shutout ball in Game 4 of the NLDS (on three days’ rest, no less) …

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October 12, 2013: … or how Kershaw left Game 2 of the NLCS trailing by a 1-0 score after a double, passed ball and sacrifice fly.

By this time, anyone calling Kershaw a postseason flop is guilty of convenient memory loss. In five playoff starts to this point, he had a 2.37 ERA. Acknowledge his one legitimate loss, and his ERA in the four other starts was 1.05.

October 18, 2013: Game 6 of the 2013 National League Championship Series — seven runs in four-plus innings — was a dud, it’s fair to say. What’s unfair is the way it overshadowed all his success before that night.

October 3-7, 2014: His two starts in the 2014 National League Division Series are classic Rorschach tests. Defenders would remind you that in the first six innings of the two starts, Kershaw had a 1.00 ERA. The alternate view: By surrendering leads in the seventh inning, Kershaw did nothing less than fail.

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Either way, Kershaw is a victim of his own success, in that nearly any other pitcher who got into Kershaw’s kind of trouble of the seventh inning of Game 1 of the 2014 NLCS would have been pulled from that game with the lead. Hardly any other pitcher who delivered six shutout innings in Game 4 of the NLCS on three days’ rest, and still left with a quality start, would have been trashed the way many trashed Kershaw.

Bottom line: Kershaw has not been as successful in the playoffs as he has been in the regular season. But to say that he hasn’t been successful at all is objectively wrong.

He has made eight postseason starts. In half of them, he has allowed two runs or less. In two others, he has allowed two runs or less heading into the seventh inning. His postseason record as a starting pitcher should, at worst, be 4-4.

This compulsion to characterize Kershaw as a playoff failure is perverse. No one is suggesting that Kershaw has had a postseason to match Madison Bumgarner’s in 2014. However, the absence of perfection is not failure.

Is it really so impossible, such a juggling act of the mind, to comprehend Kershaw’s postseason successes and shortcomings in the same train of thought?

And you know what? That’s not even the thought I want to leave you with today.

Just because Kershaw has disappointed (to whatever extent) against St. Louis in October is no reason to diminish what he is doing right now. We are seeing a pitcher that comes once a generation, if that.

Even if our ultimate goal — like Kershaw’s — is to win the World Series, don’t take what he’s doing right now for granted.

Clayton Kershaw is capable of many things, but he can’t force October to come before September. Until he gets another chance at postseason glory, savor him. Appreciate that all the experience he is amassing can only help him come the fall.

And then, when the time comes, don’t fall into the trap of ignorance. Don’t assume the worst.