After two and a half weeks of rest and recovery, Clayton Kershaw might be making a return to the mound within the next few days.
Clayton Kershaw has not been the luckiest guy especially in the past few years. Since the 2016 season started, the Dodgers veteran has taken 10 trips to the injured list while only taking one trip during the first 8 seasons of his major league career.
View the original article to see embedded media.
Luckily, this time, his injury does not call for a complete rehab assignment down in the minor leagues.
Back when Kersh was pulled from his August 4th start, fans were not thrilled about his departure but Roberts insured them that his IL stint wouldn’t be as long as some in the past.
His return date has remained September and looks like things are still on track for that to be made possible.
The former Cy Young award winner pitched in a sim game on Saturday as hopefully the last step before getting back into the starting lineup this upcoming week. Here’s how the game went:
Many Dodgers fans know that the nine-time All-Star has dealt with some back pain for the past few years but still remains on the greatest pitchers so this comes as good news for LA. After the mock game, he shared his thoughts:
Now although it was just a sim game, Kershaw may be somewhat of a perfectionist so he wasn’t the most happy about his performance.
He did express that he’s happy he was able to get the work in nearly pain free and let fans know about the decision to choose the sim game route rather than heading down to OKC for a rehab assignment. (quote from OC Register’s Bill Plunkett).
“I would have liked to have pitched better…But ultimately you just have to do it to get your pitch count up as a starter. … That’s really the only reason to do it, to throw pitches. I did that. Health and quantity is the most important thing. Obviously you’d like the quality to be there too. But sometimes in those situations it’s hard to replicate a game.”
Although we miss out the 34-year-old southpaw out on the field, I think it’s safe to say we can all agree we would rather have him back as healthy as possible especially in time for an intense postseason stretch.
