BOSTON — We wanted retro. We wanted an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel between elite starters, something that felt grainy and black and white and historic. Something that could conjure a handoff through time that includes Christy Mathewson to Sandy Koufax to Madison Bumgarner.
But Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale could not reach back to their better selves — so much for nostalgia. Wear and tear has possibly won the battle against the duo, at least for this year. Kershaw’s velocity has flagged as much as Sale’s endurance.
They went from marquee to marked men. Kershaw and Sale combined to face three batters in the fifth inning Tuesday night without recording an out. There was no throwback to Bob Gibson or Curt Schilling. The elite lefties instead offered what would get Sonny Gray banished from the rotation.
World Series Game 1, therefore, became part of the avalanche of modernity — lots of pitchers and tons of pitches over an extended period. The Red Sox won 8-4 in an opener that conjured:
Can Boston’s David Price and/or Nathan Eovaldi or Los Angeles’ Hyun-jin Ryu and/or Walker Buehler provide the sustained starting excellence that escaped Sale and Kershaw?
If not, what will these relief corps look like by end of the 114th World Series? There are 23 pitchers on the rosters. But this Fall Classic began with relievers having thrown more innings already this postseason (256 ²/₃ innings) than starters (252 ²/₃) had. In Game 1, it was eight innings for famous starters and nine innings for relievers.
And the Dodgers and Red Sox are so aggressive in mixing and matching hitters and pitchers that a constant whirl of changes should be expected.
“You look at the both rosters, there’s a lot of depth, a lot of position players on both sides, grinding at-bats, and both have the ability to work counts and get pitch counts high,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So you’re going to have to go to the pen and play matchups. That’s kind of how I saw it.”
In Game 1, Los Angeles started nine righties against Sale, and by the end of the seventh inning had used all four of their positional reserves, each a lefty swinger.
The putaway blow for the Red Sox came in the bottom of the seventh. The Dodgers’ third reliever of the frame, Alex Wood, yielding a three-run homer to pinch-hitter Eduardo Nunez to burst open what was a 5-4 game.
In all, 12 pitchers were used to throw 308 pitches in 8 ¹/₂ innings over 3 hours and 52 minutes. The tone was set by Kershaw and Sale, who allowed 17 of the 39 batters they faced to reach base, teaming to allow eight runs in eight innings (five by Kershaw).
“It’s not how you draw it up and dream about it, but we got a win,” Sale said.
This version of Kershaw just does not match up well against these Red Sox. With a fastball averaging only 90.7 mph and not much separation with his slider, Kershaw lacked weapons to nullify a team that so consistently puts the ball in play hard. He would need his defense even more to compensate and Los Angeles played poorly in the field.
“To beat a club like that, you have to play a cleaner game,” Roberts acknowledged.
This was the seventh time in 21 postseason starts that Kershaw has yielded at least five runs, continuing his Octobers of caroming between success and failure.
Sale was better, but hardly his best. He struck out seven, but the Dodgers worked his pitch count — 91 through one batter in the fifth. Sale had only thrown 27 ¹/₃ innings since the beginning of August (postseason included) due to ailments to his shoulder and stomach. He may not have the endurance with so little work to maintain high-end stuff for an extended period.
“No chance,” Dodgers first baseman David Freese said of seeing the starter matchup play out this way. “I saw both of them going [deep], but man, both lineups can spit on pitches, work counts.”
Kershaw and Sale brought their names to the World Series opener, but not their best games. A tone was set how this best-of-seven will be waged — you can write that in pen.
