Clayton Kershaw Will Be on Dodgers' 2025 World Series Roster, Didn't Appear in NLCS

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters on Thursday that veteran pitcher Clayton Kershaw will be on the team's World Series roster.

The 37-year-old was on the team's roster for the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies and the NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers but was not on the roster for the Wild Card Round against the Cincinnati Reds. He didn't make an appearance in the team's four-game sweep of the Brewers, however.

His lone appearance against the Phillies didn't go terribly well either, as he gave up six hits, three walks and five runs (four earned) in just two innings of relief duty during an 8-2 loss in Game 3 of the NLDS. It is the only game the Dodgers have lost during the 2025 postseason in an impressive 9-1 run through the National League.

Kershaw will likely be a first-ballot Hall of Famer after a career that includes 11 All-Star Game appearances, three Cy Young Awards, an MVP award and two World Series titles (though he wasn't on the team's postseason roster for last year's title due to injury).

But the postseason hasn't always been kind to Kershaw. In 40 total appearances (32 starts), he's gone 13-13 with a 4.63 ERA, 1.146 WHIP and 213 strikeouts in 196.1 innings. For a pitcher with a regular-season of 2.53 across 18 seasons and a WHIP of 1.018, October Kershaw has not offered nearly the level of dominance that the regular-season version gave the Dodgers for nearly two decades.

Nonetheless, given how shaky the bullpen has been outside of Roki Sasaki in his new role as closer, having Kershaw as a potential option gives Roberts some options. It's been a moot point for most of the postseason, given how dominant the rotation has been, but it's hard to imagine the dangerous Blue Jays going down with the sort of whimper that the Brewers offered (just four runs in four games).

As for the aforementioned rotation, the Dodgers reportedly plan to mirror the NLCS, when they started Blake Snell in Game 1, Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2, Tyler Glasnow in Game 3 and Shohei Ohtani in Game 4.