Dodgers Interview: Kersh discusses his short outing on a long night

QUEENS, NY — Clayton Kershaw has pitched in plenty of rain delays before—but Friday night’s soggy saga at Citi Field was especially bitter. After just two innings of work in his second start back from injury, Kershaw’s night came to an abrupt halt due to a 1-hour, 38-minute rain delay that left him watching the next 11 innings from the dugout.

“It feels fine, I guess,” Kershaw said postgame, his trademark dry candor intact. “Obviously, I’d like to keep pitching.”

The veteran left-hander had started to settle in when the skies opened up, robbing him of a crucial opportunity to build rhythm and stamina after missing the first three months of the season.

“I was starting to feel like I could find some consistency, some repetition,” he said. “The more reps, the better for me right now. Just trying to get back into it.”

Kershaw was visibly frustrated by how the delay was handled.

“In hindsight, they probably should have just waited to start the game for a while,” he said. “It’s tough to have our bullpen end up covering 10 innings. But they did an amazing job. All those guys threw the ball so well.”

That bullpen effort proved essential in the Dodgers’ marathon 13-inning, 7–5 win over the Mets—a game that saw blown leads, clutch hits, defensive gems, and two separate extra-inning threats from New York. The Dodgers’ relievers combined for 11 innings of work, allowing just three earned runs and preserving the game long enough for Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages to deliver the go-ahead RBIs in the 13th.

Still, the night came at a cost. The bullpen was emptied, and the veteran ace couldn’t log the innings he’d hoped for.

Asked if he knew the rain was coming when he took the mound, Kershaw shook his head. “No, I didn’t,” he said. “If it was 30, 45 minutes, I probably would’ve been fine. But an hour and whatever it was—that’s probably too long.”

Kershaw tried to stay loose during the delay, throwing in the cage when it looked like the game might resume soon. But once the delay dragged on and he was told he was done for the night, the decision was out of his hands.

“It’s kind of hard to ramp it back up after that,” he said. “I wasn’t going to do that.”

Despite the personal setback, Kershaw made sure to credit his teammates for grinding out a win under difficult conditions—especially after the bullpen surrendered a 5–2 lead in the ninth.

“Losing the lead in the ninth and then coming back—that was great,” Kershaw said. “It’s a tough way to start the road trip, depleting the bullpen like that, but the Mets had to do the same thing. And they lost, so that doesn’t feel near as good.”

Kershaw’s night didn’t go as planned, but the Dodgers walked away with a win. As he put it, “It’s baseball. I’ll get another crack at it soon.”

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