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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: DODGERS VS BREWERS

October 17, 2018

Clayton Kershaw

Los Angeles, California - postgame 5

Los Angeles - 5, Milwaukee - 2

Q. You seemed to have a pretty good feel for your curveball today. How does that change the dynamic when you really have a good feel for that pitch, seemed like you did today?
CLAYTON KERSHAW: It's important. I think it's just the break, obviously, but I think the change of speed. My fastball and slider are pretty close in speed. If I'm able to throw that over for strikes, it gives them a different speed and depth to look at. And it's definitely important, for sure.

Q. It looked like you were coming out of the game. Puig was on deck, Barnes gets a hit and you go up and bat. Was it like the old days when you were lobbying to go another inning?
CLAYTON KERSHAW: No, in that situation it's 1-0. So thankfully Barnes came up huge right there, got that big knock for us. Because if the runner is on third, Puig is probably going to get that at-bat and my day is over. I understand the situation, obviously I understand we have to score. So it wasn't a huge lobby on my part, but very thankful that Barnes came up huge right there for us.

Q. Obviously the season maybe didn't go as smoothly as you might have drawn it up. What does it mean to be here now, one victory away from the World Series?
CLAYTON KERSHAW: Yeah, it's huge. I think, like you said, it wasn't as easy maybe as last year to get to this point. And realize we've got some work to finish it off and get back. Yeah, if you would have told us in Spring Training we would have a chance to go back to the World Series, one game to go, we definitely would have taken that.

Doesn't really matter how you get here, but thankful that we are here now for sure.

Q. In the third inning at-bat with Aguilar when I think he fouled off four pitches with two strikes, what's kind of going through your mind at that point? You're throwing him a lot of different stuff.
CLAYTON KERSHAW: Yeah, well he's a great at-bat. He was fouling off what I thought to be great pitches, you know. I was trying to -- I was thankful to get ahead of him in that at-bat. And I was trying to stay on the edges as best I could. He's a great hitter, he had a great year. I was trying to do my best to work the bottom of the zone, work the edges, get him to chase as best I could. Fouled off some really good pitches. Fortunate to get a slider past him for that last pitch.

Q. After you strike him out on that, what did that do for you, because you didn't allow another baserunner the rest of the way?
CLAYTON KERSHAW: Anytime you can work yourself out of situations like that that's going to make or break the game. Minimizing damage as best you can as a starting pitcher is huge. 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. And it happened to work out today.

Q. You don't need any motivation from Game 1, but the personal satisfaction that you can get from giving your team a boost in Game 5?
CLAYTON KERSHAW: Yeah, I don't really -- other than wanting to pitch, I don't really think about the one before. And after this one I'm not going to think about this one, either.

But to go back to Milwaukee up 3-2 as opposed to being down 3-2 is huge for us. It's a tough place to play. It's a great team. And it's been a battle every single game we've played them so far, and we don't expect anything different when we go back. We're in a much better spot now because of today and I'm glad I was able to contribute today.

Q. In the first inning when you're kind of in the dugout and you see Miley coming out and Woodruff coming in, do you allow yourself to think about what they're doing or the gradual extinction of the starting pitcher or anything like that?
CLAYTON KERSHAW: Just thinking that I have to get Woodruff out (laughter)

No, I think it's -- the first inning was strange. There were a lot of challenges. Obviously I didn't expect Miley to come after one batter. I don't know if we were prepared for that or not. But it was -- for me it's just trying to stay loose. Anytime there's a long inning, just trying to make sure to move around. I even threw some in the cage, some of the innings that were a little longer, just doing whatever you can to stay loose in between innings.

Q. Two questions: One, did you stay to the end last night or did they tell you go home and get some rest?
CLAYTON KERSHAW: I did stay to the end last night.

Q. Given last night and the burden that was placed on the bullpen, you come into a start like this, do you feel like I've got to give them 7 innings or what have you, I've got to ease that burden on the bullpen?
CLAYTON KERSHAW: Yeah, it definitely is in the back of your mind about the game last night and what you're trying to do, probably more so in the regular season in those type of situations. Because in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series we're going to have guys probably pitching out of their comfort zones all over the place. And that was evident today when they were prepared to take me out after five innings. We had some bullpen coverage.

But, yeah, it's definitely in the back of your mind that you want to try to go as deep as possible when the bullpen was taxed as much as it was yesterday.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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