It’s one of life’s oldest, coldest, and truest facts – Father Time eventually catches up with all of us.

A young man in his twenties is a different man in his thirties; and in forties, and in his fifties; and… well, you get the point.

Taking it one step further (and the actual point here) is that there is no greater example of a man’s shelf life than that of a professional baseball player; more specifically, of a major league baseball player.

Simply put, at baseball’s highest level, one’s productive days are numbered.

Oh sure, the are remarkable exceptions to this rule. One need look no further than the remarkable and seemingly ageless Bartolo Colon who, even at age 45, continues to mow down hitters half his age. In fact, the lovable Altamira, Dominican Republic native, who celebrated his 45th birthday on May 24, took a perfect game into the eighth inning this past April 15 – Jackie Robinson Day – as a 44-year-old.

But by and large, the average major leaguer is pretty much past his prime once he hits thirty. The good news is that, by then, most have reached free agency and are financially set for the rest of their lives … and their children’s children’s lives.

Changing gears a bit (although only slightly), this past week and in anticipation of the return of Dodgers ace and future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw, MLB.com’s Mike Petriello seemingly took pleasure in pointing out that the 2018 Dodgers are actually a better team without the 30-year-old Dallas, Texas native:

“For essentially the entire month of May, the Dodgers have been without 60 percent of their Opening Day rotation. (On Tuesday, they lost a fourth starter, when Kenta Maeda departed early due to a hip strain that sent him to the DL.) For a team that entered the month at 12-16 and eight games out in the National League West, that might have been enough to sink its season. But the Dodgers’ rotation hasn’t collapsed. Quite the opposite, actually. It’s thrived.”

Although ‘thrived’ may be a bit harsh and regardless of your opinion of the oft-critical Petriello, he’s basically right. In fact, even Orange County Register Dodgers beat writer Bill Plunkett agrees with Petriello and provided some actual numbers to back him up in this May 29 post on Twitter:

Again, ‘thrived‘ is a bit harsh, but facts are facts. And the painfully simple fact is that the man once referred to as ‘The best pitcher on the planet’ no longer is, and has declined noticeably with age … just as we all are.

“I guess they don’t need me,” Kershaw kidded with Plunkett, when presented with these numbers. “No, it’s just a compliment to this team that we have guys who can fill voids. You see that all over the place when guys have been out. We always have a lot of guys on the DL every year it seems like. Part of the culture around here is just a ‘next-man-up’ mentality.”

Then again, what else is Kershaw supposed to say, right?

But wait, there’s more … and it isn’t good.

It’s no secret that Kershaw’s bread and butter pitch has always been his mid-to-upper-nineties fastball, which he would use to set hitters up for his devastating curveball the Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully affectionately called “Public Enemy Number One.” The problem – and it is a significant one – is that Kershaw has been using his bread and butter fastball with less frequency over the past five seasons, as noted by ESPN Senior Writer David Schoenfield:

• 2014: 56.5 percent
• 2015: 54.0 percent
• 2016: 50.6 percent
• 2017: 46.6 percent
• 2018: 44.5 percent

And then came Thursday.

After spending nearly a month on the disabled list for left biceps tendinitis, Kershaw made his much-anticipated return on Thursday afternoon at Dodger Stadium..

It did not go well.

You almost had a sense that something wasn’t right with Kershaw in his first start since May 1 when Phillies second baseman Cesar Hernandez lined his very first pitch, an 89-MPH fastball, into center field for a leadoff single. Kershaw’s fastball velocity would go down from there over the next five innings.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Actually, that’s not entirely accurate.

Even a bad outing for Kershaw is generally better than a good outing for most other pitchers. In his five innings of work in front of a packed Dodger Stadium press box full of national and international media types (in addition to the regular Dodgers beat writers), Kershaw allowed only one run – albeit a gift run on an horrendously blown call by home plate umpire Will Little that went completely unnoticed by everyone in the Dodgers dugout – on four hits with one walk and five strikeouts.

Ummm…
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

Just Kershaw being Kershaw – with one blatantly obvious exception: nearly every fastball that he threw on Thursday was under 90 MPH.

Uh oh.

Immediately following the game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts broke the latest devastating news to the media about his All-Star left-hander.

“There was a little something, his back tightened up during that outing, so that could have attributed to the lack of velocity,” said the Dodgers skipper. “Obviously with Clayton’s history, there’s obviously some concern, you want to make sure that he’s well and good. So we are going to just kind of dig into it and see if there’s anything to it.

“Our medical staff will probably dig in more and potentially a [MRI] scan and see where we’re at with that, just to make sure physically he’s fine,” Roberts said. “So right now, we don’t know anything else.

“The shoulder felt fine, it was just the back tightened up and, because of the history, we just want to make sure what we’re dealing with,” he added.

Anyone who has followed Kershaw closely throughout his career, and let’s face it, who hasn’t, the one thing that absolutely positively jumps out at you is that that he always… always attempts to try to convince his manager to let him stay in the game.

Not so on Thursday.

“Did he fight to stay in?” asked one reporter.

“Ah, no,” Roberts answered.

Uh oh indeed, and a pretty good indication that this may be a bit more than “a little something.”

“There’s really nothing else to say other than that,” Kershaw said. “Beyond frustrating to feel like you’re out of the woods being healthy feeling good, and then have that kind of crop up in the game.

“Obviously I don’t know the severity, don’t know the length, don’t know any of that, but yeah, extremely frustrating, for sure,” he added.