The Los Angeles Dodgers went into the postseason with a formidable group of starters in Clayton Kershaw, Rich Hill, Yu Darvish and Alex Wood. While Darvish was acquired to serve as a right-handed complement to Kershaw, much like Zack Greinke had, he slotted third in the rotation.
Darvish fared well on the road in his first two playoff starts, but then only went 1.2 innings in Game 3 of the World Series. He was penciled to start Game 7, and hoped to atone for the subpar outing at Minute Maid Park.
Instead, Darvish again only managed to record five outs. He exited with the Dodgers in a 5-0 deficit they never recovered from. Clayton Kershaw threw four scoreless innings, and Alex Wood kept the Astros off the board in the eighth and ninth innings.
It led to second-guessing of Dodgers manager Dave Roberts electing to start Darvish in the winner-take-all setting. But to the second-year manager, Darvish was the clear option.
“To think that we would start Alex on short rest, something he’s never done, you don’t know what you’re going to get in either [Kershaw or Wood]. “To think they’re going to start the game, I think it’s unfair to Yu.
“We felt good with Yu starting the game. Yu has been one of our top three starters all year or since we acquired him. And he had a bad one in Houston.”
This October marked the first time Kershaw did not start on short rest since 2009. His string of doing so in each postseason began in 2013. Roberts stated prior to each playoff series this year that the team would not put Kershaw in that position.
His relief appearance on short rest was a second in as many years. Last October, Kershaw pitched into the seventh inning of Game 4 of the National League Division Series on three days’ rest, then earned a save two nights later.
Had Kershaw started in Game 7 of the World Series, an option he and Roberts said was never discussed, it would have come on just two days’ rest.
