Ultimate Football Guy Clayton Kershaw Is Upset About Starting The NLDS On A Saturday Because It Messes With College Football

Did you know that Clayton Kershaw and Matthew Stafford play baseball together? The broadcast on TV only mentions that about 800 times per game. Anyway, it really is incredible how much football runs this country. Even people who are athletes at an elite level at other sports admit they just love spending their weekends watching football. I don't blame them. We have playoff baseball going on tomorrow, and I will be balls deep in it, but I won't act like I won't be watching football either. Tom Izzo, who is the head basketball coach at Michigan State, has admitted that basketball isn't even his favorite sport. Football remains king.

As far as Kershaw is concerned, I obviously know that he's joking, but just because I'm a huge, fucking dork, I went back and looked at his playoff starts throughout his career to see if his starting on college football Saturdays has led to some ugly numbers. That isn't the case. Kershaw, in four postseason appearances on a Saturday, has posted an ERA of 3.18, well above his career postseason ERA of 4.22. He is 1–2 in those outings, though one of those appearances came out of the bullpen, where he locked down the 2018 NL pennant against the Brewers.

In all seriousness, I've gone back and forth with people about this 1 million times, but Clayton Kershaw in October tends to be maddening. He isn't without his occasional great start, but some of the worst outings of his career have come on the biggest stages. I route for the guy, I really do. It's one of my favorite pitchers of all time. The Dodgers will need them. That rotation is banged up. The only way they win the World Series is if he's great for an entire postseason, which he's rarely been.