Dodgers Need Kershaw-Greinke Two-Headed Monster to Dominate in Postseason

This is their postseason to own, a month when Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke can pitch themselves into October lore and fortify their legacies as members of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

All they have to do is dominate a few of the best teams baseball has to offer.

More than any other duo in the majors this season, it is Kershaw and Greinke who are capable of this feat in the way Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling drove the Arizona Diamondbacks to the 2001 World Series championship. And being that the Dodgers have huge question marks in their rotation after those co-aces, their dominance might be the only way this team can hoist the trophy at the end of the month.

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Kershaw and Greinke combined 9-0 2.28 ERA in September, 70 K 2 HR allowed. #Dodgers went 10-0 in their starts

— Brian Hoffman (@b_hoffman11) September 29, 2014"

A resurgent Dodger offense, led by an MVP-caliber second half from Matt Kemp, was a huge part of the team going 32-21 in the final two months of the regular season. That part of the attack must stay hot, or at least warm, for this club to not have to sweat out every series, which starts Friday with the National League Division Series against the St. Louis Cardinals at Dodger Stadium. 

The bullpen is also a concern because the bridge between the starters and closer Kenley Jansen is rickety, and that might be stating it lightly.

But the serious concern is what happens to the rotation after Kershaw and Greinke, and this is also assuming those two are their typical wonderful selves. Hyun-Jin Ryu is the team’s No. 3 starter, but an irritated shoulder has kept him off the mound since Sept. 12 when he pitched one inning and allowed four runs to the San Francisco Giants.

The Dodgers hope Ryu is good to pitch Game 3 of the NLDS, but a simulated game Wednesday will be the final test. If he is bad or hurt or unable to give the team more than four innings in the postseason, or all of the above, the pressure ramps up for Kershaw and Greinke. If Ryu is as strong as he was in the regular season—2.62 FIP—he could give the Dodgers the best on-paper rotation in either league, although the Washington Nationals are right up there.

Behind Ryu, Dan Haren is the other unknown. He finished the season on maybe his best run in a few years. Over his final 10 starts, Haren had a 2.43 ERA and opponents hit .191 against him. Over his last seven outings, he had a 2.09 ERA and opponents had a .176/.200/.281 slash line.

If this is the Haren the Dodgers get in the postseason, they are virtually unbeatable—again, assuming Kershaw and Greinke pitch as expected—but if Haren is the guy the Dodgers had between April and August, limiting the importance of his starts will be vital to the team’s success. Haren went 20 starts between April 13 and Aug. 1, posting a 5.18 ERA while the team went 8-12 in his outings.

“I've minimized my mistakes,” Haren told ESPNLosAngeles.com last month in the midst of his productive stretch. “It's little things. I've consciously tried to keep the ball in the yard, keep guys off balance and it's worked so I just have kind of stayed the course.”

The uncertainty following Ryu and Haren, along with the plethora of quality pitching the offense will have to face, is why the Dodgers need Kershaw and Greinke to be historically good. Because if they are, it likely won’t matter too much what the arms behind them do, especially if the duo throws at least twice in a series. 

Schilling and Johnson arguably put together the greatest postseason by any pitching duo ever while with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001.

Schilling made six starts and went 4-0 with a 1.12 ERA in 48.1 innings. He started Games 1 and 5 of the NLDS, Game 3 of the NLCS and Games 1, 4 and 7 of the World Series.

Johnson made five starts and one critical relief appearance, the latter closing out the seventh game of the World Series. He went 5-1 with a 1.52 ERA in 41.1 innings and started Game 2 of the NLDS, Games 1 and 5 of the NLCS and Games 2 and 6 of the World Series before that Game 7 appearance.

Schilling and Johnson ended up being co-MVPs of the World Series, combining for all four wins of that series, and the Diamondbacks went 10-2 in games pitched by those two.

Kershaw (1.77 ERA, 1.81 FIP) and Greinke (2.71, 2.97) have this kind of dominance in them. Kershaw had one of the most dominant seasons ever seen from a left-handed pitcher, and Greinke was fifth in the league in wins (17) and strikeouts (207), sixth in ERA and eighth in winning percentage (.680). Together, they combined to gives the Dodgers 11.8 wins above replacement, according to Baseball-Reference.com, the highest major league total from any two pitchers from the same team. 

If the Dodgers are stretched to the final game of every series they play through the World Series, Kershaw and Greinke, the NLDS Games 1 and 2 starters, respectively, could line up to pitch 11 of the team’s 19 postseason games with Kershaw going a couple of times on three days’ rest.

In a tournament that requires the Dodgers to win 11 games to be champions for the first time since 1988, the odds seem to be in their favor thanks to that potentially dominant two-headed nightmare for opposing lineups.

If it happens, Kershaw and Greinke will forever be talked about as one of the game’s greatest postseason pitching duos.

Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.