Clayton Kershaw Went From a Luxury to a Necessity for the Dodgers

You don’t always get what you pay for when it comes to professional sports. 

The international brand known as the Los Angeles Dodgers has done well with its player investments thanks to a slew of superstars that keep jersey and ticket inventory low and profits high.

It’s a completely different story when it comes to measuring on-field success: The Dodgers have suffered two consecutive first-round losses and have a solitary World Series victory that came during the unusual 60-game season of 2020.

For a club with one of the highest payrolls in Major League Baseball and a roster of marquee names, it seems strange to rely upon Clayton Kershaw in his 17th season to once again fortify a starting rotation that has dealt with a lot of damage in 2024.

A whopping 10 pitchers, including six starters, are currently on the injured list for the Dodgers. Five of those starting pitchers are on the 60-day IL.

It’s one of the reasons why L.A. is below .600 this season at 76-52 (.594) and holding onto one of the smallest leads in any division right now. Their 4.0-game lead over the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League West feels even smaller due to the strong surge both clubs have enjoyed in the second half.

The Dodgers are playing better as a whole since getting back Mookie Betts from a broken left hand; he missed 45 games from June to August. Since he returned on Aug. 12 and moved back to his natural position in right field, Los Angeles has gone 7-3.

Momentum during this stretch has also come in the form of a 36-year-old southpaw. Kershaw helped secure a winning road trip for his team thanks to 11.2 innings of work and one run allowed against the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals. The victories were more critical upon second glance.

Eight clubs have either matched or bested L.A.’s win total on the road this season. At 35-30 away from Dodger Stadium, Dave Roberts’ squad hasn’t been so close to .500 since 2016 when they finished 38-43 (.469) in his first year on the job.

Now, Los Angeles has a four-game winning streak that counts a three-game sweep over the Seattle Mariners.

Compare the Dodgers rotation to the squad that lined up against them at Chavez Ravine this week. A quartet of rotation-mates for the M’s — Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo, George Kirby and Bryce Miller — have all made at least 25 starts this season, leading their starting corps to a 3.32 ERA, the best in all of baseball.

No. 5 starter Bryan Woo has made 15 starts, and his 80.2 innings pitched would be good for fourth-most in L.A.’s rotation. Amongst players still on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster, he would rank third; amongst those on the active 26-man roster, he’d rank second.  

Somehow, the Dodgers rotation has managed to post a 3.88 ERA through this instability, good for ninth-best in MLB this season. It has a lot to do with a mix of smoke and mirrors, openers and bullpen days.

A total of 17 different players have started a game for the Dodgers, tied for most with the Milwaukee Brewers, another team using a blend of magic to find success atop its division.

By comparison, two clubs who have made the distinct choice to turn over their rosters this season — the Miami Marlins (16) and Chicago White Sox (15) — have used the third and fourth most starters, respectively.

Gavin Stone, a player who entered 2024 with only four starts to his name and seemed like the eighth-best option in the rotation entering the year, has become the most reliable option for his manager. His 23 starts are more than Tyler Glasnow‘s 22; Glasnow leads the team with 134.0 innings pitched. (Glasnow went on the injured list with right elbow tendinitis on Aug. 16.)

James Paxton made 18 starts before being designated for assignment and shipped back to the Boston Red Sox. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and his 12-year, $325 million contract have been good for 14 starts, and he may only be good for a handful more in September as he’s currently on the 60-day IL with a strained rotator cuff.

On Tuesday, Walker Buehler became the fifth Dodgers pitcher to reach 10 starts. That’s not bad for a pitcher who finally returned from Tommy John surgery on May 6, 22 months after going under the knife. Right hip inflammation sidelined him for the entire month of July before he made two starts this month.

Enter the stalwart and future first-ballot Hall of Famer.  

Since he returned on July 25, Clayton Kershaw has once again become a constant for the Dodgers rotation. That’s not exactly how president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman drew it up in the offseason.

Paxton and Yamamoto were the key free agent signings. Glasnow was the big trade. Young standouts like Bobby Miller, Dustin May and Emmet Sheehan were all supposed to fortify the rotation while Kershaw recovered from shoulder surgery in the first half. 

Going back to his rookie campaign in 2008, Kersh has never missed so much of the regular season. In every 162-game season, the Dallas native has been reliable for 20 or more starts. Even in the pandemic-shortened 2020, Kershaw still managed to tie for the team lead with 10 starts in the Dodgers’ 60-game slate.

Now, 16 years after debuting as a 20-year-old (less than two years after he was drafted seventh overall out of Highland Park HS), Kershaw continues to be a necessity for Los Angeles.

Over that 17-season period, the era of Cody Bellinger started and ended. Matt Kemp’s time came and went. (And then came back and went again.) The team’s next-most prolific starters in that time, Chad Billingsley, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Julio Urías, aren’t even in MLB anymore. 

Justin Turner returned with Seattle to Dodger Stadium for the first time since 2022. His nine years with the organization are one short of a decade and almost a decade short of Kershaw’s tenure.

The more things change, the more Kershaw stays the same.

Dating back to that debut season, a total of 148 pitchers have thrown at least 1,000 innings in the majors. And yet, only one of those players did so as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Clayton Kershaw.

The Dodgers’ all-time strikeout leader may not be getting any relief alongside him in the rotation any time soon, but fresh bodies are being added to the active roster every day for the Dodgers.

After the addition of Betts last week, the club activated Tommy Edman and Max Muncy from the injured list on Monday. Freddie Freeman, who’s 2-for-10 since being diagnosed with a hairline fracture on his right middle finger, is foregoing a stint on the IL for now.

It’s the dog days of summer in baseball, and L.A. is beginning to heat up. Thanks to Clayton Kershaw, of course.

Stats updated prior to games on August 22.