Roberts: 'I wanted Clayton' to lock down Game 5

He retired only two hitters, but in doing so, Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw both punched his club's ticket to Chicago and applied a salve to his dubious postseason reputation by locking down his club's series-clinching 4-3 victory over Washington early Friday morning at Nationals Park.

As the Nationals' ninth-inning rally mounted, though, with the tying run on second and the winning run 90 feet behind him, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts presumably wasn't thinking about the implications of having Kershaw, so often the playoff scapegoat, record the final two outs of the National League Division Series. He just knew, with his trusted closer's command starting to abandon him, he wanted his best pitcher on the mound.

"I wanted Clayton," Roberts told MLB.com's Anthony Dicomo. "And so I felt good about it."

Still, nobody could fault Roberts for having some trepidation about bringing in the three-time Cy Young award winner (notwithstanding his, y'know, three Cy Young awards). Two days earlier, Kershaw had thrown 110 pitches - his most in a game since May 29 - in an eventual 6-5 victory that left him "exhausted," he said, "physically and mentally, just drained." Irrespective of fatigue, meanwhile, for reasons unknown, the best pitcher of his generation just hasn't been all that good in the playoffs, posting a 4.83 ERA with a 1.22 WHIP in 76 1/3 innings prior to Thursday's outing. It was more than reasonable to expect the 28-year-old not to be available for the series finale.

Wasn't it?

"At the end of the day, if we don't win that game, we're going home anyway," Kershaw said. "So what does it matter? I just wanted to be available, and it ended up to the point where I could help out tonight."

Help out, indeed. Heading into Game 5, Kershaw hadn't made a relief appearance since the 2009 National League Championship Series, but with Kenley Jansen already gassed as he took the mound with a one-run lead in the ninth (he ended up throwing a career-high 51 pitches, by the way), it became increasingly clear it'd be Kershaw on the mound at the end of the game, win or lose.

The gambit ended up sending the Dodgers to the NLCS for the first time since 2013, and gave Kershaw his first career save.

"I'm like, wait a minute, am I dreaming right now?" Jansen said after the game. "It's an awesome feeling to know the best pitcher in the game has your back."