LA Dodgers choke on the field

The Los Angeles Dodgers have historically been known as one of the best team in baseball, having won six World Series championships and 23 National League Pennants. In most recent years, the Dodgers have won their division, the National League West, seven years in a row, giving them a guaranteed playoff spot. However, it has been 31 years since the Dodgers won a World Series, despite having numerous opportunities to make World Series appearances, including two of the past three Major League Baseball (MLB) seasons.  This past post-season, the Dodgers faced off against the Washington Nationals in the National League Division Series. The series went back and forth, with each team trading wins, eventually going down to a deciding game five in which the Dodgers held the lead through eight innings. Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, brought in Clayton Kershaw in the eighth inning to pitch in relief, and Kershaw then proceeded to give up back to back home runs, letting the Nationals tie, and eventually win the game that ended the Dodgers season. This was the culmination of many years of Dodger playoff disappointments, and the spotlight shines on one man: Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw has consistently been a MVP-level pitcher in his 12-year tenure with the Dodgers, pitching some of the most impressive seasons in baseball’s modern era. He has won three Cy Young awards as well as a Most Valuable Player (MVP) award. In 2014, he won the MVP and Cy Young in the same season. Kershaw has been arguably the best pitcher of our generation and one of the best left-handed pitchers to ever play the game. However, Kershaw has built a reputation of being a notorious playoff “choker” after multiple blunders that have cost the Dodgers nearly every opportunity they have had at post-season glory. Kershaw has a very impressive 2.33 career regular season Earned Run Average (ERA) compared to a lackluster 4.43 ERA in the playoffs, a mediocre number compared to the ERAs of other playoff pitchers. He has an overall losing record in the playoffs, and in the biggest moments, Kershaw is a shell of himself on the mound.  Whether it was the Cubs in 2016, Astros in 2017, or the Nationals in 2019, Kershaw fails to come through in the clutch. Blame could be placed on poor management from the front office or on questionable decisions made by the Dodgers’ manager in big games. However, the culmination of years upon years of the collapse of the Dodgers in the playoffs puts Clayton Kershaw right in the spotlight, and there is no indication that he will ever recover.