Kershaw at ease ahead of potential season-saving start
Clayton Kershaw's been here before. The Los Angeles Dodgers ace saved their season in the 2015 NLDS, then did it again earlier this October with a Game 4 gem against Washington and a surprising relief appearance on one day's rest in Game 5.
What he's being asked to do Saturday may be his biggest task yet, though: Save the Dodgers' season again while forcing an NLCS Game 7 at Wrigley Field, which would tighten collars across the Cubs' locker room and throughout the North Side of the city.
He's not sweating, though. No, it seems as though the left-hander is treating Saturday's start as just another normal day.
"I don't know if excitement’s the right word," he said when asked for his feelings ahead of the start in a news conference on Thursday, according to Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times. "... I don't know if I have a word for it. But I think you do everything you can to try and keep it just like another start at the beginning.
"Then, obviously, the magnitude and the situation of the game kind of raises everybody's adrenaline and things like that. But I'm trying to keep it the same right now."
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It's not as though the 28-year-old is stepping into an unfamiliar arena. Last week, Kershaw stymied the Cubs at the Friendly Confines with seven innings of shutout ball, en route to a Game 2 Dodgers win that started some chatter about whether or not the Chicago bats had dried up for good. With the Cubs' bats now awake again, though, they may hold an advantage, especially at home. Even Kershaw believes the advantage Saturday may lie in the batter's box, since they just faced him five days ago.
"There's no secrets, anyway, in the game right now," Kershaw explained. "There's so much information. They know every pitch that I throw and every count and every situation. So it's just a matter of not really focusing on that and just trying to compete every single pitch and execute every single pitch.
"You maybe have a little less margin for error facing them the second time, but just be better, I guess."