Dodgers News: Clayton Kershaw Feels He's Been Ready to Return

Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw, sidelined since August 4 with a back issue, will finally be activated this week after being ready "for a while."

In a different situation, Clayton Kershaw might have been activated from the injured list as soon as he was eligible in mid-August. Instead, he prepares to make his return either Thursday in New York against the Mets or Friday against the Padres at Dodger Stadium.

As Bill Plunkett reports in the Orange County Register, Kershaw has been feeling essentially pain free since an epidural injection shortly after he went on the IL after leaving his August 4 start in San Francisco.

But for a variety of reasons, Kershaw's return will wait until at least September 1.

“I felt good for a while now,” he said. “The situation we’re in, this is more kind of a roster decision more than anything. I’ve felt pretty good for a while now. We took it slow, did two sim games and now ready to go. Sometimes you can’t decide when you get to pitch. They tell you. I’m just trying to listen to them as best I can, not get too impatient.”

September 1 is when the active roster expands from 26 to 28 and the allowed number of pitchers goes from 13 to 14, and that roster expansion is at least part of the reason the Dodgers slow-played Kershaw.

They're also certainly aware of how 2021 went, when Kershaw returned from the injured list in September and then went down with an arm injury in his final start of the regular season, causing him to miss the postseason and putting a cramp in the Dodgers' World Series aspirations.

Last year, the Dodgers were fighting tooth and nail in a battle to win the NL West. This year, not so much, as the second-place Padres are quite a bit closer to the last-place Rockies than they are to Los Angeles.

With every remaining regular-season game essentially meaningless, the only goal for the Dodgers is to prepare for the postseason. So there was no point bringing Kershaw back in mid-August — especially when they already had Dustin May returning around that same time.

Kershaw will be back this week, in time to make a handful of starts before the postseason, which he says "should be fine" as preparation. The hope and goal is to have a healthy, effective Kershaw leading the Dodgers to a lot of wins in October.