We should all have slumps like Clayton Kershaw

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

By Jon Weisman

Someday, it will happen. Someday, age will catch up with talent, and like every pitcher before him, Clayton Kershaw will become ordinary.

That day has not yet arrived.

This is what Kershaw has done over his past four starts: 26 1/3 innings, 2.73 ERA, 12 singles, three doubles, two triples, four homers, two walks, 37 strikeouts.

That’s not an ordinary pitcher. That’s an All-Star.

Even including his singular worst start of 2015, when he allowed five earned runs in 6 1/3 innings April 11 at Arizona, Kershaw leads the Major Leagues in xFIP (1.88) and is 14th in FIP, according to Fangraphs.

David Schoenfield of ESPN.com’s Sweet Spot took a look at Kershaw’s season, focusing mainly on his home runs allowed, and other than some stumbles in location, discerned the following:

… Batters are having more success early in the count against Kershaw, hitting .407 and slugging .852 when putting the first pitch in play, compared to .291 and .464 a year ago. Of the 27 balls in play against Kershaw on a 0-0 count, 24 have been fastballs. That’s similar to last season, when 105 of the 114 first pitches in play against Kershaw came against his fastball, so that doesn’t necessarily suggest batters have been more aggressive against the fastball. They just haven’t been missing.

When Kershaw gets to two strikes, he’s still been dominant, although not quite as dominant:

2014: .114/.147/.178

2015: .141/.212/.269

The home run to Blackmon was the first he’d allowed to a lefty with two strikes since 2012.

Overall, Kershaw should be fine. He’s made some mistakes and got a little unlucky with some of the fly balls leaving the park. After Monday’s game in Milwaukee, he told reporters, “I don’t feel like answering questions right now. I don’t want to analyze it right now. Thanks.” He did apparently apologize for his terse response but it speaks to his frustration level.

Kershaw has raised expectations so high for himself that anything short of start-to-finish dominance is jarring, and anything that evokes the late-inning struggles from last year’s playoffs can make you queasy. But there is no crisis here.

It has been 50 weeks since Kershaw allowed three triples in a seven-run third inning at Arizona, and alarm bells rang from here to Phoenix, ignoring the possibility that sometimes a bad inning is just a bad inning. After that game, Kershaw had a 4.43 ERA. From that point on, his ERA was 1.43.

It’s not that the same thing is guaranteed to happen this year. It’s that it doesn’t really make sense to assume the worst, especially when he’s still nearly as dominant as any pitcher in the game.

Given that Kershaw has made three consecutive starts looking for his 100th win and the Dodgers have lost each game by one run, I’m most reminded of his arrival in the big leagues. It took the future three-time Cy Young Award winner no fewer than 10 tries to get his first victory in the big leagues. Nine games and two months into his MLB career, Kershaw was 0-3 with a 5.18 ERA. We know what happened next.

Keep counting out Clayton Kershaw, and one day you’ll be right. But you’ll be wrong many, many times before then.