Kuzul

While it was an easy call to place the likes of Josh Donaldson and Bryce Harper on this MLB 2015 Year-End All-Star Team, there were plenty of positions where the decision was far more challenging.

Simply put, there were a ton of spots with two or sometimes even three deserving players.

To figure out which position players would make the grade, stats like average, OBP, slugging percentage, OPS, extra-base hits, home runs and WAR were all taken into consideration. Defensive production was also considered—especially at shortstop and catcher, the premier defensive spots on the diamond.

When it came to selecting the starting pitcher and closer, stats like ERA, saves, strikeout-per-nine ratio, FIP, xFIP and WAR were all factored into the equation. And after crunching all those numbers, an unexpected ace ended up claiming the starting nod for this team.

Begin Slideshow

Incomparable. You’ve probably heard that word thrown around in connection with Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw, the dynamic duo that’s poised to pitch the Los Angeles Dodgers into October.

Certainly, the likes of Greinke and Kershaw don’t come around often, and even less frequently do such immense talents occupy the same rotation.

But there is a comparison for the Dodgers’ two-headed mound monster, if an imperfect one.

We’ll talk more about the “imperfect” part in a moment. First, let’s step into the wayback machine and set the coordinates for the autumn of 2001. (Yes, that was 14 years ago. And yes, you should feel old.)

That season featured a seemingly unbeatable pitching twosome who double-handedly carried a National League West club to a thrilling World Series victory.

The club was the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the arms they rode across the Fall Classic finish line belonged to Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling.

Johnson (2.49 ERA, 249.2 innings pitched, 372 strikeouts) and Schilling (2.98 ERA, 256.2 IP, 293 K) dominated in the ’01 regular season, finishing first and second in National League Cy Young balloting, respectively. But they flipped a switch in the playoffs, changing their settings from “superb” to “superhuman.”

Schilling went 4-0 with a 1.12 ERA in 48.1 innings and started Games 1 and 5 of the National League Division Series, Game 3 of the National League Championship Series and Games 1, 4 and 7 of the World Series.

Johnson 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. Then, for good measure, he came out of the bullpen in Game 7 to get four crucial outs and set the table for Luis Gonzalez’s game-winning single off the New York Yankees‘ Mariano Rivera in the ninth.

Johnson and Schilling wound up sharing World Series MVP honors. It was frankly impossible to place one above the other, just as it was impossible to imagine Arizona sniffing the Commissioner’s Trophy without its pair of aces. Baseball is a team sport in the truest sense, but that 2001 title run—the only one in the D-Backs’ brief history—was as close as any two men can come to carrying an entire franchise on their backs.

In 2011, the 10-year anniversary of Schilling and Johnson’s impossible-unless-you-witnessed-it feat, Gonzalez offered a firsthand perspective, per MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert:

It was awesome. They went out there and dominated the game. They quietly competed against each other. And you loved it when one of them had a fantastic game, because you knew the other guy was going to be amped up and ready to go and outshine the other guy. It was a great mix of those two guys. It was the yin and the yang, but they did it.

The question now is: Can Greinke and Kershaw do it too?

There are parallels. Greinke (1.65 ERA, 207.2 IP, 185 K) and Kershaw (2.18 ERA, 215 IP, 272 K) are in the midst of superlative seasons and could well finish one-two in Cy Young voting, though the Chicago Cubs‘ Jake Arrieta is in the mix.

They’re also a righty-lefty combo like Schilling and Johnson. Johnson was coming off two consecutive Cy Young seasons, and so is Kershaw, his southpaw counterpart. And, as Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times outlined, Greinke and Kershaw motivate each other with the same friendly-yet-fiery competition Gonzalez described:

After Kershaw flirted with a perfect game July 23 against the Mets in New York, [catcher Yasmani] Grandal recalled a conversation he’d had with Greinke after a spring game.

“Kershaw better watch out because I’m coming after him,” Grandal recalled Greinke telling him.

They’re pushing each other to rarefied air.

Whether they’ll push the Dodgers to their first championship in 27 years remains to be seen. But if they do, they aren’t likely to do it in the same way—or, more specifically, to the same extent—as Johnson and Schilling.

Here’s a striking fact: In the 2001 postseason, Johnson and Schilling threw a combined five complete games. By contrast, Greinke and Kershaw have tossed only four complete games between them all season.

That’s the norm in today’s MLB, with its emphasis on pitch counts, relief specialists and late-game matchups. In 1998, Schilling led the majors with 15 complete games. In 1999, Johnson paced baseball with 12.

This season, four pitchers are tied for the lead with four complete games apiece.

One of those pitchers is Madison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants, who turned back the clock last October and threw an astounding 52.2 postseason innings, breaking the record set by Schilling in 2001.

The Giants left-hander tossed 21 frames in the World Series alone, including a gutsy Game 7 relief appearance that sealed San Francisco’s third championship in five seasons.

So it is possible, even today, to shoulder the load. More than a template, though, Bumgarner was the exception that proves the rule. Part of the reason his performance glistened so brightly—besides its utter brilliance—is that it was an anomaly among anomalies.

Likewise, what Johnson and Schilling did in ’01 is a rarity in this or any era. Having a pair of top-shelf pitchers doesn’t correlate with postseason success, as Houston Mitchell of the Los Angeles Times outlined last September:

A check of other teams with at least two dominant starters since expanded playoffs began in 1969 says otherwise. Using the criteria of at least two starting pitchers who, like Kershaw and Greinke, have a WHIP of 1.16 or lower and an ERA+ of 125 (meaning they were 25% better than the average pitcher that year), 39 other teams have two pitchers like that. One of those are the 2014 Washington Nationals, with Tanner Roark and Jordan Zimmermann. Of the other 38, only 21 made the playoffs. Only four of those teams won the World Series, with nine teams losing in the first round of the playoffs.

The 2014 Nationals didn’t end up in the World Series, and neither did the 2014 Dodgers. In fact, after sweeping the Cy Young and NL MVP awards in the regular season, Kershaw tripped over his cleats in the playoffs, going 0-2 and raising his career postseason ERA to an unsightly 5.12.

That doesn’t mean Kershaw will fade this year. But it does prove that even the greats can wilt under baseball’s brightest glare.

In all likelihood, if the Dodgers are going to spray champagne and dump confetti for the first time since the waning months of the Reagan administration, they’ll need the offense, which has scored the third-fewest runs in baseball since the All-Star break, to click. They’ll need another starting pitcher (Alex Wood? Brett Anderson?) to chip in. And their frequently wobbly bullpen must rise to the occasion.

Los Angeles is right to expect a lot from Greinke and Kershaw. They’re the studs in the stable, after all. And Dodgers fans can be forgiven for closing their eyes and letting visions of Schilling and Johnson dance in their heads.

It’s a scintillating comparison, no question.

In the end, though, some things are simply incomparable.

All statistics current as of Sept. 23 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

1. Clayton K-K-K-K-K-K…ershaw

The season’s silliest moment, and it’s not even close, came when the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw was not originally named to the National League All-Star team and instead was listed among the NL’s final-five fan vote.

Are you kidding?

In the name of Sandy Koufax and all that is hardball holy, if Kershaw is not an automatic, no-brainer All-Star, then somebody whiffed, and whiffed badly.

So chalk up another in Clayton Kershaw’s Season of Strikeouts. A swing and a miss. Right now, he’s a Toro-riding mower chugging through a field of overgrown weeds.

“He keeps defying the odds,” Dodgers outfielder Carl Crawford marvels. “Just when you thought you’d seen it all, he keeps rising above.

“We really do get spoiled.”

Yes, we do. Case in point: In a season in which Kershaw is on pace to become the first pitcher to fan 300 or more hitters in a single campaign since Arizona’s Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling in 2002, Kershaw didn’t even win the NL fan vote. St. Louis’ Carlos Martinez did.

Kershaw was named an NL All-Star as a replacement for Max Scherzer, who became ineligible when he pitched on the Sunday before the game.

Granted, the man who won both the NL MVP and Cy Young awards last year pitched part of the first half without his Superman cape. He went a “pedestrian” 6-6 with a 2.85 ERA and a 1.024 WHIP in the first half. He also led the league with 160 strikeouts.

Now at a career-high 259, he’s on pace for 300-plus, and suddenly people who have been napping on certain things this season are beginning to take notice.

His steamrolling of San Francisco last week with a 132-pitch, 15-strikeout complete game was phenomenal. And it wasn’t just the strikeouts, it was his utter dominance in a key game in a pivotal series that separated the Dodgers from the Giants in the NL West race.

“That’s the best I’ve seen him in two years,” says one NL scout. “It was a masterpiece.

“He could have struck out everybody that night.”

Much as you might expect Kershaw to get a rush from all of the strikeouts, he doesn’t. At least, he claims he doesn’t.

“You know what, strikeouts are just another out to me,” he says. “It’s not the most important thing. Sometimes it’s good to be able to strike guys out in different situations but, honestly, getting outs as fast as possible is the most important thing.

“Keeping your pitch count down, going eight or nine innings, those are things I try and focus on as opposed to striking guys out.”

Still, like tourists on Sunset Boulevard, the strikeouts are coming in waves.

And in 11 starts since July 8, Kershaw is 8-0 with a 0.93 ERA. He’s racked up 112 strikeouts and walked just nine in 87 innings during those outings.

If Kershaw does finish the season with 300 punchouts, he will be the first Dodger to do so since his friend, Koufax, in 1966. Koufax produced the top four strikeout seasons in Dodgers history: 1965 (382), 1966 (317), 1963 (306) and 1961 (269).

“Anytime you get to be mentioned in the same breath as him when it’s related to baseball is a huge honor,” Kershaw says. “But strikeouts are just a byproduct of trying to get outs as quickly as possible.”

However, in working toward getting quick outs, Kershaw’s strategy changes, depending on in-game situations.

“He says that,” Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis says. “He says an out is an out. He is so satisfied with getting a first-pitch weak ground ball. To him, that’s the perfect out. That’s what drives him.

“That said, when the hitter has two strikes and there’s one out, now he’s in control of the out. When the hitter has two strikes, now what’s the best option of getting one of 27 outs?”

So here comes the hammer.

Part of it is that Kershaw is throwing in an era when major league hitters are striking out like never before. The rate of 7.79 whiffs per game in the NL is the second-highest ever, trailing only last year’s 7.90. But that does not distort the fact that Kershaw is on pace for baseball’s first 300-K season by a pitcher since 2002, or that his overwhelming dominance is all-consuming.

“It’s a joke,” Dodgers starter Brett Anderson says admiringly. “It’s remarkable. Double digits every start.

“Being a strikeout guy early in my career, you appreciate a ground ball here and there. But with him, there’s some jealousy.”

And at season’s end, that San Francisco start may well wind up as his signature game. His 15 strikeouts were the highest total against the Giants in a single game since Nolan Ryan fanned 16 San Francisco hitters on Sept. 9, 1987.

“His slider was unbelievable. His fastball location was spot-on.

“He’s had a couple of starts this year where it’s almost a letdown if a guy puts it in play.”

In last season’s Cy Young/MVP summer, Kershaw set his own bar so sky-high, you can almost—almost—understand why he wasn’t an automatic All-Star selection this year. But it still doesn’t excuse those of us judging him on a Superman scale instead of on par with other big league hurlers.

“Expectations are great,” Kershaw says. “That means people think highly of you. That’s the way I look at it. People are going to have their opinions about how you’re doing, which is also fine with me. It’s a lot of people’s jobs to do that.

“But at end of day, I care about how I view it, how Honey [pitching coach Rick Honeycutt] views it and how our team views it. That’s the most important thing.”

And to that degree, it’s aces across the board. As usual.

2. The Mets and Operation Shutdown

We can joke all we want about what a young Ryan and Tom Seaver would have said when their innings-pitched odometer ran high and the threat to shut them down would have been mentioned, but it is a different game and culture today.

So when things went volcanic between Matt Harvey and the New York Mets the other day, the disbelief isn’t that a powerful agent would bully the club in the best interest of his client.

And it doesn’t come from the fact that Harvey sent mixed signals over a 48-hour period that provoked overwrought emotions. Yeah, he’s 26, but he’s still just a kid in the bruising world of MLB. (Though given his title as “New York City Bureau Chief” for the Players’ Tribune, you would have thought he would have fact-checked and sourced things far better than he did.)

No, the inexplicable part of this is how Harvey and the Mets got themselves into this position, so publicly, in the first place, with less than four weeks left in the season.

Say what you want about how the Nationals handled Stephen Strasburg, but the lines were clearly drawn all season long in 2012. Everybody up to and including the Racing Presidents in Nationals Park knew that when Strasburg reached a certain point (and it turned out to be 159.1 innings pitched), the Nationals were going to pull the plug.

What’s crazy about this Mets business is how it exploded on Labor Day weekend, severely damaging Harvey’s reputation, potentially crippling his relationship with the club and causing the Mets to look like they were wholly unprepared for what they had to know was coming.

Harvey at first was vague regarding agent Scott Boras firmly stating, via CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman, that 180 innings was the pitcher’s limit for the summer. Then Harvey “authored” this piece for the Players’ Tribune promising that he would be available for the playoffs. Then, finally, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson spoke Monday, and things remain vague.

The Mets opened a crucial series against the Nationals on Monday with a victory, a game that New York play-by-plan man Gary Cohen called the club’s “biggest game in seven years.” He was right.

Yet, all the while, Harvey was getting absolutely crushed by the New York media and Mets fans, which led into his start Tuesday against the Nats in which he was crushed for seven runs in 5.1 innings, a performance that now appears to be perhaps his final start of the season.

Harvey maintains he will pitch in the playoffs. But he still hasn’t said how much or how often. Alderson indicated Monday that all of that was still being decided.

Ah, nothing like stretch-run negotiations.

3. Wake Me Up When September Ends

Anybody who watched the Dodgers-Angels Labor Day night labor-thon knows that is more than just the title of a Green Day song.

The clubs combined to use 16 pitchers, tied for second-most ever in a nine-inning MLB game and most ever in a Dodgers-Angels game. The game took three hours and 52 minutes to play.

For all of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s efforts to move along the pace of play, this month, as usual, is going to crush those efforts.

Thing is, there is a very easy fix that is almost universally supported by everyone this side of the players’ association.

Here it is: Allow clubs to continue to call up as many minor leaguers as they wish in September. But lock rosters in at a certain number—say, 28, including five-man rotations—for each series. So each club would have to designate which 28 players are on the active roster. Then, when the next series arrives, each club could tweak its 28-man active roster.

So many managers, from the Angels’ Mike Scioscia to the Braves’ Fredi Gonzalez and ex-San Diego skipper Bud Black, have told me they’re in favor of a rules change in that vein. It makes too much sense because, with modern-day bullpen usage being what it is, if a team stocks 14 pitchers in its bullpen, it’s going to be tempted to use all of them and drag things on interminably.

During their mad dash toward the World Series in 2007, the Colorado Rockies equaled an MLB record for a nine-inning game by throwing 10 different pitchers at the San Diego Padres on Sept. 7. Every time the Padres sent a lefty to the plate, then-Colorado manager Clint Hurdle had another lefty reliever at his disposal.

This is the only game that allows its rules to be significantly altered during the stretch run. There are good reasons to allow clubs to get a look at young prospects during September, but within limits.

The rule will be discussed during upcoming bargaining sessions between the players and owners (the current basic agreement is up after the 2016 season), according to sources. It is far past time to change it.

As for Monday’s Angels-Dodgers game, even some of the participants thought it was interminable:

4. Debut of the Week

Yes, Dodgers uber-prospect Corey Seager showed us he can play, with eight hits, four doubles and three walks in his first 24 plate appearances.

But manager Don Mattingly giving him the green light on a 3-0 count against Padres reliever Marc Rzepczynski and Seager responding in his MLB debut with an RBI single was only my second-favorite moment of this kid’s arrival.

The best moment?

Before his first game, he was surrounded by maybe 15 or 20 media members in the dugout, and someone asked him whether his parents would be in attendance later that night.

“Yeah, they’re actually right there making this even more awkward,” Seager quipped, motioning toward his parents, who were standing just outside of the dugout, mom snapping cellphone photos of her son’s first official press briefing in a Dodgers uniform.

5. A (Chicken) Pox on the Royals

Sure, September is back-to-school time. But you wouldn’t think a kid’s disease would fell an MLB club during the stretch run.

Yet in Kansas City, All-Star setup man Kelvin Herrera and outfielder Alex Rios each came down with a bout of chickenpox.

Initially uncertain about Rios’ return, the club acquired Jonny Gomes from the Braves and is doing everything it can to prevent a full-fledged outbreak.

The Royals think they’re good, as most people are inoculated against chickenpox, among many other things, as kids.

Quipped Gomes after the Royals ran him through their medical exam, per Dave Skretta of the Associated Press (via the Denver Post): “That was the first time I’ve been asked that in a physical. Normally it’s, ‘How’s your shoulder? How’s your knee?’ Yeah, chickenpox. I’m good.”

And people thought the biggest challenge standing between them and another World Series appearance would be the Toronto Blue Jays.

6. Weekly Power Rankings

1. Scott Boras: The game’s most powerful agent now calling Harvey’s pitches. One finger for a fastball, two for a curve, three for time to shut it down.

2. Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke: Since Greinke joined the Dodgers rotation in 2013, the duo has racked up 98 wins, most of any teammates in that time, according to STATS LLC. They also rank first and second in ERA during that time (minimum 300 innings pitched), with Kershaw owning an MLB-best 1.91 ERA and Greinke second at 2.34.

3. College football: Thrilled to have you back, but some of these shoe-company-induced metallic helmets and weird-looking uniform combinations are as jarring as Bermuda shorts on the 1976 Chicago White Sox. Ugh.

4. Yoenis Cespedes: Since the Mets acquired him July 31, Cespedes, as of Wednesday, was hitting .307 (47-for-153) with nine doubles, three triples, 13 homers, 34 RBI and 32 runs scored in 35 games. Mets to Carlos Gomez: Thank you!

5. Stephen Colbert: Best late-night acquisition in New York since Billy Martin managed the Yankees.

7. Chatter

• The Texas Tech quarterback who threw for a nation-high 425 yards and four touchdowns in the Red Raiders’ 59-45 win over Sam Houston State on Saturday? Yes, Patrick Mahomes is the son of the former big league pitcher. Pat Mahomes went 42-39 with a 5.47 ERA over 308 games pitching for Minnesota (1992-96), Boston (1996-97), the Mets (1999-2000), Texas (2001), the Cubs (2002) and Pittsburgh (2003).

• The surprising Twins keep rolling, and outfielders who manager Paul Molitor and others think could be productive for a long time in Minnesota continue to settle in. Left fielder Eddie Rosario now has 15 outfield assists, just one short of the club’s rookie record of 16 set by Kirby Puckett in 1984. Aaron Hicks is getting his footing in center field, and Byron Buxton is a future star.

• Seattle is cranking up its GM interview process and is set to interview former Angels GM Jerry Dipoto, according to FoxSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal. Given the Mariners’ parameters set by president Kevin Mather, that they don’t want someone learning on the job, Kevin Towers, Jim Hendry, Dan O’Dowd and Kenny Williams should get interviews, too.

• Everything is falling into place in Toronto, including this: Marcus Stroman will make his first start of the season Saturday against the Yankees. Stroman tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee this spring and originally was thought to be lost for the season. Stroman’s addition could make the Jays even stronger down the stretch and in October.

• Kris Bryant now has 23 homers. The only rookie in Cubs history with more? Billy Williams, who hit 25 in 1961.

• Love that shortstop Addison Russell last week became the first Cubs No. 9 hitter to homer twice in a game since…Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, in 1971, as the Elias Sports Bureau pointed out.

• Rest in peace, Joaquin Andujar. Will never forget him saying, “There is one word in America that says it all, and that one word is, ‘You Never Know.'” Still holds true today.

8. Bryce Harper Watches…and Watches…and Watches

And yet, in this game on Thursday, he walked four times, scored four runs and knocked in a run:

9. Memories

Just because, you should read this old news story:

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Week

If you read item No. 3, you knew this was coming…

“Summer has come and passed

“The innocent can never last

“Wake me up when September ends

“Ring out the bells again

“Like we did when spring began

“Wake me up when September ends”

— Green Day, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Wednesday’s plethora of MLB games allows DraftKings participants to make the most out of low-value offensive options. Pitching aces such as Max Scherzer, Matt Harvey and Clayton Kershaw are a few of the upper-tier pitchers set to take the mound on Wednesday.

With a focus set on bargain positional players in order to make room for high-quality pitching options, here are the best DraftKings fantasy baseball picks for Wednesday.

Begin Slideshow

With two outs and Oakland Athletics third baseman Danny Valencia at the plate with a 1-2 count, Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw offered a fastball he thought would end the third inning.

But the pitch was too far outside.

Valencia got a piece of the ace’s next offering, sending Kershaw off the mound to try to field the ground ball headed toward third base—but he botched it. The ball bounced away from his glove a few times, and he couldn’t make the play at first.

Valencia got the hit, and frustration got the best of Kershaw.

The lefty slammed the ball on the ground and fired it into the dugout before returning to the mound.

He struck out the next batter, Josh Phegley, as the A’s held on to a 1-0 lead.

[MLB]

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

After his Colorado Rockies were swept last week at Citi Field, Nolan Arenado explained it away by raving about the New York Mets‘ pitching.

“The Mets have four No. 1’s. We saw all four of them,” Arenado said.

No one ever says that about the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Dodgers may well have the best two starting pitchers in baseball in Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. And they may well have the most underwhelming back end of a rotation of any playoff contender.

It’s no coincidence that since the start of July, the Dodgers have gone 12-3 when Kershaw or Greinke starts a game—and 11-16 when anyone else starts.

“It’s still hard to believe that they didn’t go out and get another big starter,” one rival scout said Monday.

But they didn’t. They’ll go into the playoffs in seven weeks with Kershaw, Greinke and whoever is left, and they’ll make the best of it. And if the standings stay as they are today, they’ll open the Division Series against a Mets team that can counter with Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Jonathon Niese.

Arenado was being a little generous when he called them “four No. 1’s,” since Syndergaard is still developing and Niese isn’t in that class. But Syndergaard without a doubt has No. 1 stuff, and before long the Mets could have Steven Matz in Niese’s place.

Regardless, scouts would overwhelmingly agree that the Mets’ rotation is deeper. So which group would they take in a playoff series?

“We were just talking about that the other day [at Citi Field],” one NL scout said. “If you had one four-game series, and you had to win three games, you’d take the Mets. But in the playoffs, you’d have to give the advantage to the Dodgers, because of their experience, their track record, and the fact that they’re both true No. 1’s.”

A few necessary reminders here: The Dodgers have had Kershaw and Greinke together for two Octobers already, and they didn’t win either time (losing to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS in 2013 and to the Cardinals in the Division Series in 2014). They’re 2-2 in Greinke’s four postseason starts for them, and 0-4 when Kershaw starts against the Cardinals in October.

And for all the concern about rotation depth, the team that won the World Series in 2014 did it with just one dependable starting pitcher. Take out Madison Bumgarner, and the Giants rotation last October was 1-3 with a 5.59 ERA in 11 postseason starts.

It worked, because Bumgarner was historically good and because Bruce Bochy always finds a way to win in October. But even Bochy wouldn’t want to try it again with just one starter he could count on.

What about with two?

“I’d take two great ones,” said Jim Leyland, who managed in the postseason eight times with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Florida Marlins and Detroit Tigers. “I’d like two guys you think for sure will shut them down.”

Even without asking anyone to pitch on short rest, a team like the Dodgers could use their top two starters three times in a best-of-five Division Series, and four times in a possible seven games in the LCS and World Series. Win all of those starts and you’ve got yourselves a championship.

If you’re willing to push a starter on short rest, as the Dodgers did with Kershaw each of the past two seasons, you can minimize the back of the rotation even more.

With one pitcher on short rest, your big two could start four of the five games in the first round, or five of the seven in the LCS or World Series.

It’s hard to imagine the Mets pushing any of their aces that hard, especially in a year when Harvey and Syndergaard are both subject to innings limits that could lead to extra days off or skipped starts down the stretch (general manager Sandy Alderson has said that the innings limits won’t keep them out of the postseason).

With their depth, though, the Mets would have less need to start anyone on short rest.

The Mets have other postseason questions, starting with the biggest one of all: Can they hold off the favored Washington Nationals to win the NL East? Bullpen depth has also become a significant issue, showing up over the weekend when the Pirates swept three games at Citi Field.

The Dodgers have other questions, too. Like the Mets, they tried to strengthen the middle of their bullpen at the July 31 deadline; like the Mets, they may not have done enough. The Dodgers still face a strong challenge from the Giants in the NL West, and if they need Kershaw or Greinke to pitch a wild-card game, the rotation depth would become a bigger problem.

There’s time for that to play out, and there’s time to discuss it. The question on the table today is a much simpler one: If you had your pick for October, do you take Greinke and Kershaw, or do you prefer the Mets’ deeper rotation?

I’m taking Greinke and Kershaw.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

You could call it a comeback.

Except Clayton Kershaw never went anywhere. 

The best pitcher on the planet still is and has been for most of this season. It’s fair to say he hasn’t been as good as he was a year ago, but you would just barely be correct in that assessment.

The wins and the ERA are not where they were in 2014, but we should all be able to agree that advanced metrics have produced far better barometers to judge a pitcher. And when you look at those things, you realize Kershaw has been every bit the ace the Los Angeles Dodgers need him to be as they attempt to win a third consecutive National League West Championship this season.

He continued to prove so Saturday afternoon as he dominated the Washington Nationals in a 4-2 victory. Kershaw was a victim of the Dodgers’ new hesitation to let pitchers throw complete games—they have just three despite the rotation having the fourth-lowest ERA in the majors—so he reached eight shutout innings, striking out 14 and allowing three hits. He generated 30 swings and misses, tied for the most in a game in the last seven years, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

He used just 101 pitches to do so and lowered his ERA to 2.68, putting him in the league’s top 10.

Kershaw also struck out Bryce Harper, the likely National League MVP, three times as he posted a 90 Game Score, tied for the eighth-highest in the majors this season. For reference, Max Scherzer’s 16-strikeout, one-hit performance in Milwaukee last month was a 100, and his no-hitter was 97.

“He went out there like the MVP that he is,” Harper said after the game, per Jacob Emert of MLB.com. “He was pretty devastating. We tried to go in there and did what we could. I think he is the best pitcher in baseball.”

The prevailing belief when looking at Kershaw’s record and ERA over his first nine starts this year was that he was experiencing a big letdown from 2014, when he swept the league’s Cy Young and MVP Awards. His ERA had hit 4.32, he was 2-3 and the Dodgers were 4-5 in those games.

While Kershaw wasn’t as sharp early in the year, his results were just as much a product of some bad luck and bad breaks, which all pitchers experience. But at times, his frustration was palpable.

“I don’t feel like answering questions right now,” the normally media-friendly Kershaw told MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick after his May 4 start against Milwaukee, when he let a three-run lead in the sixth inning slip away. “I don’t want to analyze it right now. Thanks.”

Plenty of people analyzed those first nine starts for him, though. The conclusion was he was experiencing some bad luck—his .349 BABIP at the time would have been the worst of his career, as would his 65 percent strand rate—that could easily be amended.

Kershaw was still dominating. He was striking out hitters at a blistering rate, placing in the game’s top five in strikeouts per nine innings, strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio. His xFIP was a major league-best 2.15 going into that ninth start. 

In start No. 10, Kershaw turned the corner and hit the turbo booster. He went seven shutout innings and struck out 10 Atlanta Braves that night. From that start going into the All-Star break, Kershaw had a 1.53 ERA and his BABIP dropped to a more realistic (for him) .270.

Coming out of the break against the Nationals was more of the same, and Kershaw has been as good, even better, than he was in his marvelous 2014. Dodge Insider provided Kershaw’s stats:

Clayton Kershaw, 2014: 1.77 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 10.9 K/9 Clayton Kershaw, past 10 starts: 1.36 ERA, 0.78 WHIP, 12.5 K/9 http://t.co/NK5pIGBANN

— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) July 18, 2015

Also, with what he did Saturday in D.C., Kershaw became the first pitcher in 100 years with 10-plus strikeouts, no runs allowed and no walks in back-to-back starts, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

“It’s probably as close as I can remember his stuff being to his no-hitter day back last June,” catcher A.J. Ellis told Emert after the game, referencing Kershaw’s nearly perfect game last year.

In a season many thought to be a down one for Kershaw, he is proving that to be absolutely false while continuing to make history.

His FIP was 2.38 entering the game Saturday, third-lowest in the majors. His xFIP was 2.06, best in the majors. And his FanGraphs WAR was 3.7, fourth-best in the majors.

Kershaw might not have put up the prominent numbers early on, the kinds that please fans late to the party thrown by advanced metrics. But he was still quite good and one of the best in the business of throwing baseballs. A correction was bound to happen.

We are seeing that now, and it has made things painfully obvious to the rest of the sport and some of its best hitters, like Harper.

Clayton Kershaw is still the best pitcher in Major League Baseball.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The reasons for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ recent retooling are plentiful. 

For starters, they wanted a better overall team, from the bullpen to the offense to the defense to the bench. A better clubhouse atmosphere, one possibly more conducive to long-term winning, was another goal. Some financial flexibility going forward, even for a team with a record payroll, was also an advantage, as was clearing some of the old regime’s personnel for a front office increasingly trying to put its stamp on the entire roster.

So far, through 46 games, the Dodgers seem to have accomplished what they were after. For the most part.

But all the organization’s shuffling—front office and uniformed employees—was to accomplish one primary goal when history is written: win a World Series. Immediately.

Over the last two seasons, the St. Louis Cardinals have been the team stopping the Dodgers from doing so. Because of that, recent history is more important and hindering than traditional baseball beliefs for some players.

“I dream about them every day,” Dodgers superstar right fielder Yasiel Puig told reporters about the Cardinals during the offseason. “If we can beat them, we can win the World Series. We have to pass through them. They’re our principal rivals, not San Francisco, not anyone else.”

That quote obviously made headlines, especially with the San Francisco Giants, the Dodgers’ traditional rivals, winning their third World Series in the last five seasons last year. But Puig made a valid point.

While the Giants have championships, the Cardinals are the class of the league. They have made the postseason four straight seasons, knocking out the Dodgers in the last two. They’ve won two titles since 2006 thanks to a strong core of homegrown players and key trade and free-agent acquisitions.

They also go into their weekend series against the Dodgers with the best record in the majors, once again looking like the Senior Circuit’s team to beat.

“We can’t let them beat us three straight times. No way,” Puig continued, understanding the Dodgers led three postseasons games after six innings last fall but still lost to the Cardinals in four. “They’re a good team, and we all admire them. They have very good pitchers, very good players. If we beat them, we can win the World Series. We just have to get through them.”

The Dodgers’ remake, which included trading Matt Kemp (second in the majors in weighted runs created plus in the second half last season) and Dee Gordon (an All-Star second baseman), has them running well.

They go into the series tied for baseball’s third-best record, second in the NL. Their offense leads the league or is in the top five of several offensive categories. They have a starter vying to start the All-Star Game, and it’s not Clayton Kershaw. Their once-brutal bullpen, almost totally redone in the offseason, is arguably the best in the majors. Joc Pederson, the man who replaced Kemp in the outfield, is a strong front-runner for Rookie of the Year. 

“We have depth now,” manager Don Mattingly said. “We didn’t have that before. One guy gets hurt and the next guy is tearing down the door behind him. A guy gets hurt and someone else steps up.”

The Dodgers still might not be good enough to beat the Cardinals in another October fight. Despite their depth, they are a battered club with outfielders Puig and Carl Crawford on the disabled list with no timetable for their return and starters Hyun-Jin Ryu and Brandon McCarthy out for the season. St. Louis ace Adam Wainwright is also lost for the year.

That is why they produce pitching matchups for their weekend in St. Louis that casual fans will not recognize.

Pitching matchups for Dodgers at Cardinals this weekend: FRI – Bolsinger/Lackey SAT – Frias/Wacha SUN – Anderson/Martinez

— Eric Stephen (@truebluela) May 28, 2015

Cardinals win on a throwing error & avoid Kershaw & Greinke vs the Dodgers this week. So things are normal on that front.

— Matt Clapp (@TheBlogfines) May 28, 2015

What should have been a strength—the rotation—is now a significant concern for the Dodgers, and not because Clayton Kershaw has a 3.86 ERA. He actually leads the majors with a 2.13 expected FIP and is ninth in Fangraphs WAR despite an ERA that dipped under 4.00 just this past week.

While fill-in starter Mike Bolsinger has been impressive in four starts (0.71 ERA), the Dodgers’ new, normally tight-lipped front office has made no secret it is in the market for starting pitching.

“We’re actively vetting the market, doing everything we can to augment our depth,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. “Acquiring starting pitching depth is my No. 1 priority.”

The problem is virtually every team with a desirable asset still sees itself one hot two-week stretch away from contention, if it are even currently out of it. And now with Scott Kazmir and Johnny Cueto dealing with shoulder and elbow issues, respectively, teams like the Dodgers have to wait to see how they recover.

Another problem with acquiring a front-line kind of arm is it might very well cost the Dodgers an elite prospect, and that is something the front office has been unwilling to pay. Even if it is willing to listen to counter offers, players like Pederson, Corey Seager and Julio Urias are essentially untouchable.

Unfortunately for the Dodgers, it is likely they will need another strong starting pitcher to stick behind Kershaw and Zack Greinke if they plan to upend the Cardinals, or anyone else, in a postseason series. Ryu was that guy, and a healthy and effective McCarthy was the backup plan.

How the Dodgers fare this weekend in St. Louis will not determine if they are capable of beating their “principal rivals” when it counts most. How their roster looks come the first week of October will.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

For the likes of Clayton Kershaw and Andrew McCutchen, it’s still much too early to hit the panic button.

Then again, as the 2015 season reaches the one-quarter mark, two of the game’s most dominant superstars have yet to get on track. While Kershaw and McCutchen are the most prominent players to tumble into a slump, there are also starting rotations, batting orders and even entire squads that have yet to find their way.

The good news for these slow starters is that the 162-game season is a marathon, and there’s still plenty of time to change course. Still, that doesn’t mean the players and teams on this list have any intention of being patient. One of the biggest names to make the cut has already enlisted the help of one of baseball’s all-time greats in an effort to put his early-season funk in the rear-view mirror.

Begin Slideshow

It’s a good thing the Los Angeles Dodgers have arguably the best one-two pitching punch in Major League Baseball with Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke atop their staff. They’re going to need it.

In the wake of the lingering-since-spring-training left-shoulder injury to southpaw Hyun-Jin Ryu, expected to be the club’s third starter, and the more recent, more severe season-ending elbow tear suffered Saturday night by No. 4 starter Brandon McCarthy, the contending Dodgers are going to have to address their rapidly eroding rotation.

And probably sooner than later, as Bill Plunkett of the Los Angeles Times puts it:

McCarthy, who signed a lucrative contract with L.A. as a free agent this past offseason, left his outing over the weekend in the sixth inning of a game the Dodgers eventually won over the San Diego Padres.

Immediately after throwing a pitch that Justin Upton hit for a home run, the tall righty began to shake his right arm and then called the club’s coaching staff and trainers out to the mound. After a brief discussion, McCarthy came out.

“I expected [McCarthy] to go on the DL [Monday], but we thought more along the lines of tendinitis than something like [a torn ulnar collateral ligament],” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said Monday in his interview with reporters. “I felt like that’s what I was going to hear, then we would have to fill [in for McCarthy] for a little bit of time and get back to it. But obviously, the news was not good.”

The expectation is that McCarthy will need to undergo Tommy John surgery, per Earl Bloom of MLB.com, which could keep him out through the first half of 2016.

Meanwhile, the NL West-leading Dodgers (12-7) are merely very early in the first half of 2015, and already a team that has won the division each of the past two years and has World Series hopes needs to be searching for pitching depth either internally or possibly via trade between now and July 31.

Oh, and the Dodgers also have to keep their fingers crossed that Kershaw and Greinke can sustain the status quo as two of the sport’s very best and most durable.

After those two, the only other pitcher projected to be a part of the rotation at the outset of the season is Brett Anderson, who might well be the most injury-prone starting pitcher in baseball in recent years.

Over the previous three seasons, the 27-year-old left-hander has made just 19 starts and thrown all of 123 innings—combined. Anderson more or less is a disabled-list stint waiting to happen, but now the Dodgers need him to be a somewhat stable third option behind the top two.

That is, at least until Ryu returns. The 28-year-old Korean lefty, who was both good and steady in his first two seasons, is making progress but very slowly as he comes back from a shoulder impingement. Ryu threw 20 pitches off a mound Sunday in his first action since being shut down in mid-March, according to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com.

As for McCarthy, it’s not like he has been the pillar of health, which is why it was surprising to many when the Dodgers inked him not only for $48 million but also for four years this winter.

The 31-year-old has pitched in parts of 10 seasons in the majors, and only last year did McCarthy finally make it past 25 starts and over 175 innings in a single one. He has been on the DL a Ferris Bueller-like nine times.

Still, the Dodgers, in all likelihood, could have been anticipating some sort of ailment or injury for McCarthy—just not one of the season-ending variety. And certainly not after just four starts.

That leaves Mattingly and, especially, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman to scramble to find a way to make up for about, oh, 28 turns and 180 or so innings. And that’s just for McCarthy.

A peek at L.A.’s 40-man roster shows the following names as potential fill-ins, at least in the short term:

• Scott Baker, a 33-year-old veteran who sports a 4.24 career ERA and who last made even 10 starts in 2011
• Mike Bolsinger, who already has made one start for the Dodgers in 2015 but otherwise is 27 years old and in his third season at Triple-A
• Zach Lee, 23, the club’s first-round pick in 2010 who is off to a strong start at Oklahoma City (1.00 ERA, 0.84 WHIP) but who has yet to debut and is considered a mid-rotation arm at best
• Joe Wieland, a 25-year-old the Dodgers acquired along with Yasmani Grandal from the Padres in the Matt Kemp deal who has 39 career innings in the majors

There’s also Brandon Beachy, the once-promising Atlanta Braves right-hander who is trying to return from a second Tommy John surgery by this summer.

In other words: not a whole heck of a lot. Until Friedman can come up with a more stable solution, expect the above four to be on call, possibly shuttling back and forth between L.A. and OKC.

Longer term, there’s at least a possibility, it would seem, that top prospect/phenom Julio Urias could be called upon at some point.

But even if the precocious left-hander continues tearing up Double-A at age 18 (20.2 IP, 13 H, 5 ER, 26:3 K:BB), that likely wouldn’t happen until after the All-Star break. And even then, maybe only if things don’t get better for Ryu or go south once again for Anderson. Baseball America managing editor JJ Cooper offered this about Urias:

That leaves external options via trade. There will be—scratch that, there already is, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times—chatter and speculation about the usual suspects, like Johnny Cueto of the Cincinnati Reds, Jordan Zimmermann of the Washington Nationals or Cole Hamels of the Philadelphia Phillies. And any of those three, among others, are possible targets down the line.

But the Friedman-led front office has indicated in the past that there’s no interest in trading one of the franchise’s top two building-block prospects, shortstop Corey Seager or Urias, when both are massive talents on the verge of helping the big league club at minimal cost. Such a big-name pitcher is going to require a big-time return. Says USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale:

Could desperation in the form of a setback with Ryu or another injury to Anderson—or worse, Kershaw or Greinke—change that? Sure, but that remains to be seen.

Perhaps rather than honing in on another star starter, the Dodgers would be better served targeting one or two capable mid-rotation arms. Someone like Milwaukee Brewers right-hander Kyle Lohse, Oakland Athletics lefty Scott Kazmir or Reds righty Mike Leake, to name a few.

None of those three are sexy superstars the Dodgers have come to be associated with, but they’re all proven pitchers who would be major improvements over what L.A. currently is calling the back end of its rotation. What’s more, all three are free agents after the season, which would make them much easier gets, and that’s up Friedman’s alley.

Besides, with a one-two like Kershaw and Greinke, and with Ryu eventually as the No. 3, the Dodgers don’t need another star-caliber starter. They do, however, need innings.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com