It looks like Clayton Kershaw will get another appearance with the Los Angeles Dodgers after all.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters Friday that the franchise’s all-time leader in strikeouts will be on the NLDS roster as L.A. faces the Philadelphia Phillies, continuing a career that is set to end after this season.
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“He’ll be on the roster,” Roberts said. “He’s going to be out of the ‘pen and used as such.”
Kershaw was left off the wild-card roster for the Dodgers’ series against the Cincinnati Reds, which they won in a two-game sweep. They might have more use for him in a longer series against a Phillies lineup that features dangerous left-handed hitters in Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber.
Kershaw also made the roster after Alex Vesia and Jack Dreyer, the top two left-handed options in the bullpen for the Reds series, contributed to a pair of ugly eighth innings that endangered previously comfortable wins.
However that goes, it has so far been a positive final season for the 37-year-old Kershaw. Despite a late start to 2025 due to offseason surgery, he ranked second on the team in innings pitched with 112 2/3 and posted a 3.36 ERA in 23 appearances (22 starts).
He got a cameo in the bullpen in the last week of the season before his farewell start, throwing a 1-2-3 inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
As for the rest of the Dodgers’ pitching staff, Roberts confirmed that after Shohei Ohtani starts in Game 1, the team will go to Blake Snell in Game 2, Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 3 and Tyler Glasnow in Game 4 if necessary, with Ohtani the natural option for a possible Game 5.
Roberts also mentioned that Glasnow could appear out of the bullpen in Game 1, a possibility no doubt inspired by the team’s persistent bullpen issues. The Dodgers and other teams have used that strategy many times in the past, essentially making use of a pitcher’s “throw day,” a standard between-starts bullpen session, to get through a few postseason innings.
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