The China Mail - Dodgers pitching icon Kershaw to retire after 18th MLB season

Kershaw, a two-time World Series champion and three-time Cy Young Award-winner, has spent all of his 18 seasons with the Dodgers.

He is scheduled to take the mound on Friday for his final regular-season start at Dodger Stadium when the team hosts the San Francisco Giants.

"I'm really not sad," the 37-year-old said as he choked back tears at a Dodger Stadium press conference hours after the club revealed the news.

"It's just emotional, and I've tried to hold it together."

Kershaw's decision comes after he contemplated walking away from the game after each of the past four seasons, and he said he and his wife, Ellen, had discussed the move for months.

"I think almost going into this season we kind of knew that this was going to be it," Kershaw said. "Didn't want to say anything in case I changed my mind.

"But over the course of the season, just how grateful I am to have been healthy and be out on the mound and be able to pitch. I've had the best time this year. It's been a blast."

The future Hall-of-Famer will retire with at least 222 career wins and more than 3,000 strikeouts after becoming the 20th pitcher to reach that milestone in July.

Hampered by injury for much of 2024, he has been resurgent this season.

He is 10-2 in 20 starts with a 3.53 earned run average as the Dodgers chase a World Series title repeat.

Kershaw was drafted seventh overall by the Dodgers out of Highland Park High School in Dallas, Texas, in 2008.

In 2011 he earned his first All-Star selection and his first Cy Young Award as the National League's top pitcher.

Kershaw led the major leagues in earned-run-average each season from 2011-2014 and won the Cy Young again in 2013 and 2014 -- when he became just the second pitcher to claim Most Valuable Player honors.

But injuries hindered his career, starting with a bad back way back in 2016.

He returned to help the Dodgers win their first NL title in 2017 and he finally tasted World Series success when he led the Dodgers to the crown in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

With that triumph, Kershaw laid to rest the narrative that he couldn't come through in the post-season.

In 32 playoff appearances from 2008-2019 he was 9-11 with a 4.43 earned-run-average and some agonizing collapses, including against the Houston Astros in the 2017 World Series and in the 2019 National League Division Series against the Washington Nationals.

In between he took the loss against the Boston Red Sox in games one and five of the 2018 World Series.

- 'legend forever' -

But in the 2020 playoffs, Kershaw went 4-1 with an earned-run-average of 2.93 and 37 strikeouts and the Dodgers vanquished the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series.

"He's handled everything, success, the failures, with grace, with professionalism and that's always been consistent," said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who said he felt "fortunate" to have coached Kershaw for a decade.

"I've just never been around a greater competitor," Roberts said. "Very accountable. Very consistent. And he's made me better. I think that we’ve both grown together.

"And he’s earned this right to walk away at his choosing."

Injuries have piled up since 2020 and Kershaw had left shoulder surgery before the 2024 season and played just seven games for the Dodgers, who beat the New York Yankees in the World Series.

He had knee and foot surgeries in November 2024 and returned to the Dodgers rotation in May, shoring up a struggling pitching staff.

"This guy, you can never count him out," Roberts said. "Days that he didn't have his best stuff, finding ways and willing himself to go five, six, seven innings, and just on guile and heart ... He just makes everybody better."

"He's not a Dodger legend, he's a baseball legend, forever," Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman said.

C.Fong--ThChM