Monday, September 07, 2009

Kershaw to Miss Next Start

From the blog of Ken Gurnick:

Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw will miss his scheduled start Friday night in San Francisco after bruising his right shoulder running into the fence at Dodger Stadium Sunday shagging fly balls during batting practice, according to manager Joe Torre.

That's his non-throwing shoulder, so no hopefully no big worries there. The move has the benefit of resting Kershaw during a season where he has already increased his workload by more than 50 pitches innings over last year (the "Verducci Effect" warns against increases of more than 30 innings per season for pitchers under 25).

UPDATE: Thanks to Tripon for the lowdown:

Kershaw's pitched 169 innings combined last year in the majors and minors.

He's at 159 innings this year. He can probably pitch 190 innings this year.

11 comments:

NicJ said...

Was Kershaw doing his Matt Kemp impression?

Erin said...

You mean 50 innings, not pitches, right Orel?

Orel said...

Right. Unless you're Darren Dreifort.

Tripon said...

Kershaw's pitched 169 innings combined last year in the majors and minors.

He's at 159 innings this year. He can probably pitch 190 innings this year.

berkowit28 said...

That's only 3 more good games or so. What happens when we get to the playoffs?

berkowit28 said...

Oh, no. my mistake. 31 innings. Right, so 3 games or so over the next 4 weeks, and another 2 games in the playoffs. That means several days off for bumping into walls. And then what happens if we make it into the world series?

JuanLove said...

im glad he gets to rest

im not worried about CK. Dude's a horse.
He's gonna be like Halladay going a minimum of 7 innings per start.

this effect seems meh.
Beckett was ok, wasnt he?

Mr. LA Sports Czar said...

31 innings, at about 7+ innings a game, that would mean he would max out at four games. 20 games left, with him missing his Friday start, that leaves around three games left for him to pitch in, considering the extra pitcher available. So if the Dodgers use a strict pitch/inning count, he should be good for the playoffs.

Kyle Baker said...

MLASF-

That's almost close to math what you're doing. Voodoo! It's hurting my brain.

Greg Zakwin said...

What is this math you speak of? All that exists is grit, spunk, scrappiness, dirt on your uniform-ness, and Ecksteininess.

berkowit28 said...

OK, now suppose you read MLASF's comment before mine, and forget my first one where I made an oops. I was going off the same calculations as he was, but didn't spell it out. I'll do so now.

"31 innings, at about 7+ innings a game, that would mean he would max out at four games. 20 games left, with him missing his Friday start, that leaves around three games left for him to pitch in, considering the extra pitcher available. So if the Dodgers use a strict pitch/inning count, he should be good for the playoffs." (MLASF)

Right, As I said "so 3 games or so over the next 4 weeks, and another 2 games in the playoffs." TWO games in the playoffs. Let's say once each in the NLDS and NLCS - and hope we don't have to go more than 5 games in the NLCS, where we'd want to use Kershaw a second time.

OK. Now suppose we get to the World Series. What happens now? Don't use Kershaw, because of the 190-inning count?

I doubt that. I bet we'd use him twice if need be. On top of perhaps a second game in the NLCS, that would be an extra 3x7 = 21 innings. Say 20 innings. 210 innings in all, to try to win the WS. That might end up hurting Kershaw next year, maybe for his career. But I suspect Torre would do it, going all out to win.

What do you think?