Clayton Kershaw has made three starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers since returning from offseason surgery on his left knee and toe.
The future Hall of Famer was also limited to just seven starts last season, so he has not pitched much over the last two seasons.
With that, the early results for Kershaw have been disappointing. He’s thrown 11 innings with a 4.91 ERA, 4.80 FIP, 6.39 expected ERA, with a terrible strikeout rate of 12.8% and a poor walk rate to match, also at 12.8%.
Even though his third start was his best with five innings pitched and just one run allowed, Kershaw was not happy with his performance and felt there was a few things he’s working through, he said on SportsNet LA:
“I’m fighting some stuff mechanically and different things. I was able to make a few pitchers here and there to be able to get through five (innings), but obviously wasn’t pitching good enough to be able to stay in the game, which makes the bullpen have to throw more innings and sometimes stuff like this happens. Frustrating, for sure, but I think at the same time there’s some progress still. More reps and overall to only give up one run and pitch that bad is a good thing.”
Kershaw believes his biggest issue right now are his mechanics, which are not to his standard. As with many pitchers, injuries and pain can cause them to change their mechanics to compensate, which in turn can create larger issues.
After pitching through injuries and then being sidelined for so long, Kershaw is dealing with the lingering effects, despite being healthy:
“Yeah, there’s just some stuff I need to hammer down. I think I created some bad habits. With not feeling my best, I think I created some bad habits last year. And then I haven’t pitched in a while. I haven’t pitched in a long time. So there’s just some growing pains, I think, with the first few. Physically, feel great. Just got to keep throwing and figure it out.”
And when a pitcher is fully in-sync, they are able to recognize when their mechanics are off and adjust them during a game. But for Kershaw, he hasn’t been able to that this year:
“I think at the end of the day when you’re going good and you throw a bad pitch, you can make the adjustment on the next one. Right now, the adjustment is just not happening fast enough. It comes with time and reps, I hope.”
Kershaw has a lot of time left to figure out his issues and hopefully get back to being a productive pitcher. But there is also the reality to confront that he’s near the end of his career, and older players are just no longer able to do what they could in their prime.
With more than 2,700 career innings, the 37-year-old has a lot of wear and tear on his body, and his stuff has already been significantly declining. That gives him significantly less margin for error, and requires near-perfect command and execution to be effective.
If Kershaw can get his mechanics back in order, he can still be an effective pitcher, but his days of being more than a middle of the rotation starter are likely long behind him.
Clayton Kershaw confident he can fix command
With a career-worst 4.91 walks per nine and 1.55 WHIP, Kershaw has been plagued by his poor command, and it’s severely limited his success.
But as he works on his mechanics and gets them down better, his command should also return to better levels. Kershaw is also confident he can fix those issues, which in turn will provide more swing and miss to his game as well.
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