Dodgers News: Clayton Kershaw Might Have Retired if LA Won World Series

Dodgers superstar Clayton Kershaw officially re-signed earlier this week, a bit of welcome news after a month of wondering why it was taking so long. We’ve known since early November Kersh was coming back, and we found out last week it was just a scheduling delay in his physicals holding up the process.

Kershaw was on SportsNetLA’s Access Dodgers this week, and hidden in his conversation was a frightening little tidbit: He might have retired if L.A. had won the World Series in 2022.

“I think, going into, like, the way that we’ve decided to do it, my family and I, year to year, a lot is riding on what happens in the postseason to depend on what you’re going to do next year. So, if we were to win the World Series, I don’t know what would have happened. That’s a pretty good way to end things. So I’m not sure exactly what we would’ve done. But ending it the way that it did, it just felt, kind of left a sour taste in our mouth. And, like I said, we just didn’t feel done yet, so we were excited to get back out there.”

Obviously, we all wish the Dodgers had won the World Series this year, even if it meant the end of Kershaw’s career. Presumably, this means the same calculus could apply next year, meaning a Los Angeles win in the 2023 World Series could spell the end for Kershaw.

One thing in our favor is that Kersh is currently 193 strikeouts away from 3,000. Based on the last several years, he seems unlikely to hit that milestone in 2023 but would be a virtual lock to hit it in 2024. If Kershaw is 50 strikeouts away from 3,000 after 2023, it’s hard to picture him walking away at age 35, even for a guy so notoriously unimpressed by personal accolades.

Perhaps our best hope is for L.A. to win the World Series in both 2023 and 2024 and then let Kersh ride off into the sunset as a back-to-back World Series champ. Sounds like a plan, right?

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