The Dodgers live to see Game 5 thanks to an 'exhausted' Clayton Kershaw

LOS ANGELES – An hour later, Clayton Kershaw’s eyes were glossed and his voice hardly carried at all. He’d thrown 110 pitches four days after he’d thrown 101, though probably it’s not the pitches so much as it is the gravity with which he considers them, followed by the couple seconds over which he must live with them. He carries October a little lower than most, a little heavier on his chassis, a little deeper in his being, an assumption drawn from how he carries April to September, which is close to the same.

What he’d participated in over about three hours Tuesday afternoon, what he’d witnessed for another hour or so – the struggle followed by the precision, the fight followed by the misfortune, the drama chasing more drama, the victory – had left him in a place of smiling recovery.

While the outside world debated his value in Game 4 of the National League Division Series on short rest and on a shuddering lower back and with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ season in the balance, he’d pitched into the seventh inning. Indeed, one pitch shy of the eighth. He’d struck out 11 Washington Nationals. He’d doubled and scored a run. He’d gotten them about as far as he could carry them, all things considered, then watched it all fall apart, some of it his own doing, and then watched them put it back together again.

First, he said, “I’m thankful that we pulled it out.”

Then, he said, “I’m exhausted. Physically and mentally, just drained.”

The Dodgers beat the Nationals, 6-5. The exquisitely game Nationals, who have Max Scherzer waiting in Game 5 at Nationals Park on Thursday. The Nationals, who survived Kershaw for just long enough to give themselves a chance at the end. The Nationals, whose bullpen finally bent, finally ran out of available, rested left-handed relievers with two outs gone in the eighth inning of Game 4.

When it is over, however it is over, the Dodgers will have won both of Kershaw’s starts. Neither will have been vintage Kershaw, though Tuesday’s was closer. He put those last three runners on base in the seventh inning. His bullpen let them in. He’d rue the baserunners, of course, and not what happened after that, because he expects more of himself, which kind of goes for everyone else, too.

It’s become a big deal, this three-day’s-rest thing. Very few do it anymore. Kershaw does it annually, since 2013. Perhaps that continues to be a reflection of the Dodgers, baseball’s richest team and one that can’t seem to identify someone other than Kershaw to pitch Game 4 of a division series. The Dodgers have won three of those four games. Just so, it is a reflection of Kershaw, who always pitches Game 1, who always holds out his hand for Game 4, who couldn’t care less that he risks the loss that furthers the conversations of his October frailties.

“I tell them the same thing every year,” he said. “‘You want me to do it? Great, lemme know.’ ”

And then the Dodgers say, “We want you to do it.”

When manager Dave Roberts asked, Kershaw responded, “I’m capable.”

And the Nationals said, “What time?”

Which has been the best part of a series that now, in hindsight, seemed destined to wriggle its way back to D.C., to Scherzer against whatever the Dodgers have left, one game to decide who plays for a place in the World Series.

For you know how this one ended? With Bryce Harper against Kenley Jansen, two outs in the ninth, Jansen throwing 96, Harper swinging 96, the Dodgers ahead by one run or whatever came of this at-bat. It ended on a dangerous roller to first baseman Adrian Gonzalez’s right, to second baseman Chase Utley’s left, Harper busting it down the line, Jansen busting it from the mound, Jayson Werth standing on deck.

“In my mind,” Gonzalez said, “I was just going to attack it. I heard Chase calling it, and at the same time I was kind of going for it.”

“Once I was calling for it,” Utley said, “I didn’t want to give up on it just in case he was to give up on it.”

“Then he just took charge,” Gonzalez said.

“I thought Adrian was going to have it,” Jansen said. “I thought, ‘Get there fast as possible.’ ”

Utley dove, snared the grounder in his glove, released the ball from his glove and as he crashed to the ground feathered a perfect feed to the racing Jansen, who touched the bag and sent everybody to the airport.

“Glad it worked out,” Utley said.

That was what became of a game that began with Kershaw and what he might look like again, and a Dodgers’ lead that had grown in the late innings to 5-2, and a Nationals’ rally that was a clean single, an infield single and a walk, followed by a hit batter and another Daniel Murphy October. It was what became of a game that waited out the mid-game patterns of light and shadow, that rendered sliders invisible. It was a game that turned on a hit-by-pitch, the 11th of the series, with two out in the bottom of the eighth inning, then on Andre Ethier’s single in his first at-bat of the series, then on Utley, who on a 1-and-2 count short-armed a hard single into right field for a 6-5 lead.

There would be no decision for Kershaw, whose October record still reads three wins against six losses, whose real value on a Tuesday afternoon was in the 20 outs he recorded and the ball he’d hand to the next man. Maybe that’s veteran Rich Hill, who said after the game he would start Game 5. He’d done what he could and it wasn’t perfect, because the game generally won’t allow stuff like perfect. And if you’d stood down there behind him, as 24 Dodgers did, you’d probably have a different opinion of what transpired in Game 4.

“Another guy that comes to mind that I had the opportunity to play behind, Roy Halladay, for a number of years,” Utley said. “They have a lot of similarities. Their game-day focus, kind of stay away from them a little bit, let them do their thing. They are quiet. But when they get on that mound they are ready to go.”

Roberts had gone to the mound in the seventh inning, two Nationals on base, the crowd loud and maybe growing a touch uncomfortable. Harper in the batter’s box, last year’s MVP against a three-time Cy Young Award winner. Roberts stood just where Don Mattingly had in Octobers past, between the rock of the situation and the hard place of a wrung out and convicted Kershaw. He, like Mattingly, chose Kershaw, who then walked Harper. Sometimes it goes like that. Sometimes it’s still the right choice.

“For Clayton to leave every bit of himself out there … that’s why he’s great,” Roberts said. “That’s why he’s the best pitcher on the planet.”

So Kershaw was asked about what will come next, maybe Hill, maybe on three day’s rest, in the game that will decide the series. He answered in general terms and simply.

“If you want to be out there,” he said, “you’ll be fine.”