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Game 3 of the 2025 World Series was epic.
The Dodgers needed 54 outs before they finally walked off with a 6-5 win over the Toronto Blue Jays in the bottom of the 18th inning for a 2-1 series lead.
This is a deep dive into one of those outs. It may seem relatively insignificant, considering all the other huge moments during the 6 hours 39 minutes it took to complete the instant classic at Dodger Stadium. But it was important in more ways than one.
Not only did it get L.A. out of a bases-loaded jam in the top of the 12th inning to preserve a 5-5 tie, but it also could have been the final mound appearance by one of baseball’s all-time greats: Clayton Kershaw.
Here’s how his wife, Ellen Kershaw — who has seen her share of huge moments from her husband over the years — reacted in the stands.
Yep, it was epic. Let’s get into it.
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The backstory
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Eighteen seasons.
Three Cy Young Awards.
Two National League MVP awards.
Two World Series championships.
223 wins.
3,052 strikeouts.
Yeah, Kershaw has been pretty darn good in his nearly two decades with the Dodgers.
Things seemed to be winding down for the southpaw from Dallas after he was limited to seven games last year because of offseason shoulder surgery and a bone spur in his left big toe.
Still, Kershaw signed a one-year deal to return to the Dodgers, and the 37-year-old pitched quite well after offseason foot and knee surgeries. He compiled an 11-2 record over 23 games and 112.2 innings, with an ERA of 3.36 and 84 strikeouts, and pitched in his 11th All-Star Game.
On Sept. 18, Kershaw announced he would retire at the end of the season. He got a tremendous regular-season send-off from fans at Dodger Stadium. And there would be one more postseason for the future Hall of Famer. With the Dodgers boasting a stellar starting rotation of Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani, Kershaw was moved to the bullpen, beginning with the NL Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.
His one appearance in that series did not go well. Kershaw entered Game 3 in the seventh inning with the Dodgers trailing 3-1. That inning was rather uneventful, but the next one was not. Kershaw gave up five runs and five hits, including two home runs, before recording the final out of the inning. The Dodgers lost 8-2.
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The World Series
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Kershaw wasn’t going to go out like that. He wasn’t needed for the remainder of the NLDS or the Dodgers’ four-game sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers or the first two games of the World Series.
But he — and everyone else in the Dodgers bullpen — was needed during Monday night’s marathon Game 3. Glasnow pitched the first 4-2/3 innings and was followed by Anthony Banda, Justin Wrobleski, Blake Treinen, Jack Dreyer and Roki Sasaki as the initial nine innings ended with the score tied at 5-5.
Emmet Sheehan got through the 10th and 11th innings unscathed but got into a two-out, bases-loaded jam in the 12th. That’s when Kershaw, who had started warming up in the ninth inning, got the call to make his 496th appearance and his first in extra innings.
“I warmed up a lot. I was loose,” Kershaw said in an on-field interview with MLB Network after the game. “I threw enough pitches, but that’s the life of a bullpen guy, I’m learning.”
Dodger Stadium erupted as the loudspeakers blasted Kershaw’s warm-up song, the appropriately titled “We Are Young,” and the veteran prepared to face Toronto’s Nathan Lukes, a switch-hitter who had gone one for four with a double and a walk.
With fellow Dodgers legend Sandy Koufax watching from the stands, as well as childhood buddy and Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, Kershaw delivered his first pitch, an 89-mph slider that was low. Then came the second pitch, an 89-mph slider that caught Lukes looking to even the count at 1-and-1.
Another slider at 88 mph barely missed the inside corner of the plate. There was no question about the next pitch, an 87-mph slider for a called strike. Pitch 5 was an 87-mph slider in the dirt.
Full count. Bases loaded. Fans on their feet and offering all the encouragement they could muster.
Lukes fouled off an 89-mph slider and a 91-mph four-seam fastball. Then came the eighth pitch of the at-bat — a low, 88-mph slider that Lukes bounced to second baseman Tommy Edman, who scooped the ball and glove-tossed it to first baseman Freddie Freeman just in time to catch the speedy Lukes for the third out.
Kershaw kept a serious look on his face as he walked off the mound, pumping his fist and shouting, “Let’s go!”
“Just trying to come in and get one out — definitely something that I haven’t done a whole lot, but you just try to do your job and what’s asked of you,” Kershaw told reporters in the locker room after the game. “And thankfully got a little roll over there and, yeah, it was a big out for us — I thought it was going to be a bigger out, but we played like nine more innings.”
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What they said
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If it was any other pitcher, that at-bat might have been a mere footnote in an epic game that went another six innings and featured an impressive four-inning outing by Dodgers reliever Will Klein and (another) walk-off home run by Freeman.
But Kershaw and the rest of the Dodgers appreciated the significance of what could be a brilliant swan song to a magnificent career.
“It’s his last ride. We want to send him out on top,” shortstop Mookie Betts told reporters in the locker room. “That’s a tough situation for him to come in, especially someone like him, right? It’s really like an all-or-nothing thing, so to see him get out of that inning, it was just super cool.”
In his postgame news conference, manager Dave Roberts spoke about the total team effort. Still, Kershaw was one of a handful of players Roberts singled out.
“Clayton comes in, he was up for three innings, he gets a huge out for us,” Roberts said.
During an on-field interview with Fox just moments after his home run, Freeman was asked about Kershaw’s outing. His smile got even bigger.
“That was awesome,” Freeman said. “His first pitch was 89, his slider. I was like, ‘Oh baby, we’ve got old vintage Clayton back.’ Coming to the biggest spot like that, no other person you want on the mound than Clayton Kershaw.”
Kershaw told MLB Network he was happy just to have played a role in what likely will go down as one of the greatest World Series games.
“Thankful to be a part of it,” he said. “Got my number called and got an out. I’m sure we’ll have to get ready tomorrow, but that was a big out and happy to do it.”
The post ‘Got an out’: Inside Clayton Kershaw’s brief but clutch appearance in World Series Game 3 appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
