Clayton Kershaw dominates, moving Dodgers 1 win away from World Series return

LOS ANGELES — Clayton Kershaw was magnificent and the Los Angeles Dodgers rallied to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5-2 in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series on Wednesday in Los Angeles. The Dodgers are one win away from their first back-to-back World Series trips since 1977-78.

Milwaukee struck first against Kershaw with a third-inning RBI double by Lorenzo Cain, then loaded the bases with two out. Kershaw escaped the damage of a 32-pitch inning with a strikeout of Jesus Aguilar, the first of 13 consecutive batters Kershaw retired to end his day after seven innings.

“Minimizing damage as best you can as a starting pitcher is huge,” Kershaw said. “In the playoffs you probably don’t get many chances to work out of jams because you’re going to get taken out of the game because the magnitude of the game is so large.

“Once I was able to work out of that, really just tried to focus on getting the next guy, next guy, next guy.”

This was the ninth start of Kershaw’s postseason career lasting at least six innings while allowing zero or one earned run. That’s tied for the seventh-most such starts in MLB history.

Kershaw might not have been able to reach seven innings were it not for the offense snapping out of its funk. Yasiel Puig was in the on-deck circle with one out and a runner on third in the fifth inning, ready to pinch hit for Kershaw had the Dodgers remained down 1-0. But catcher Austin Barnes delivered a game-tying single, starting a stretch for the Dodgers of scoring a run in the fifth, two in the sixth, and two more in the seventh.

“I thought that was probably the at-bat of the game,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said.

The Dodgers were just 6-for-35 (.171) with runners in scoring position through the first four games of the series, but broke out with a 4-for-13 (.308) performance on Wednesday that included RBI singles by Barnes, Max Muncy, Puig and Justin Turner.

Milwaukee tried some trickery in starting left-hander Wade Miley on three days rest, only to pull him after one batter in the first inning in favor of the right-handed Brandon Woodruff. The ploy for the Brewers was to hope the Dodgers would stack right-handed batters in their lineup as they did in Game 2, but Dave Roberts instead kept Cody Bellinger and Muncy in his lineup, even batting Bellinger leadoff for the first time in 18 months.

Woodruff was magnificent in relief, through his outing was more like an actual start, striking out eight in his 5 innings. He allowed three runs, including two earned, to take the loss.

The efforts of both Kershaw and Woodruff were much needed, not even a full day after Tuesday’s 13-inning marathon that saw the Dodgers use nine pitchers and the Brewers use seven.

For Kershaw it helped erase the memory of Game 1, when he allowed five runs in three innings in the shortest postseason outing of his career.

“You could see the same look that you always see,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “There’s a determination and when you get a champion like him that gets hit around a little bit, he’s going to respond and that’s what he did today.”

Game 6 is Friday night at Miller Park in Milwaukee, with Miley starting for the Brewers, for real this time. We think. Hyun-jin Ryu will start for the Dodgers.