Photo: David Berding
Dan Patrick doesn’t quite understand fans that are up in arms about Los Angeles Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts pulling Clayton Kershaw from the game yesterday and robbing us of an opportunity to witness history. While Dan would love to see a perfect game as much as any of us, the truncated Spring Training and Kershaw’s injury history made the decision easy. It would have been bordering on negligence to leave him in the game.
Dan Patrick: “There are a lot of people who are looking at this going, ‘Baseball needs memories! We’re getting cheated by memories! Everything is a pitch count, everything is analytics.’ I get it! This, to me, is different because Kershaw, his age, his injury history, what he did those last 5 starts. Once again, I’ll say that one more time: 54 pitches, 50, 74, 73, 42. He’s trending in the wrong direction there. And even he said, ‘I wasn’t as sharp as I should have been.’ He got into the 6th and 7th inning. Would I have liked to have seen it? Absolutely! What would we be saying today if all of a sudden, he had discomfort in that left forearm?”