{"id":248705,"date":"2025-09-23T10:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T10:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/248705\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T10:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T10:40:11","slug":"a-good-message-why-celebrating-clayton-kershaws-retirement-gave-dodgers-mental-reset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/248705\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A good message.’ Why celebrating Clayton Kershaw’s retirement gave Dodgers mental ‘reset’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Dodgers<\/a> players packed in for Clayton Kershaw<\/a>\u2019s retirement news conference last Thursday, Freddie Freeman<\/a> waved the Kershaw family to a row of seats at the front of the room.<\/p>\n

He wanted Kershaw’s wife, Ellen, and their four kids in front of the pitcher right when he sat down at the dais<\/a> at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

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How else, Freeman joked, could they get the future Hall of Famer to cry?<\/p>\n

Turned out, in a 14-minute address announcing his retirement from baseball at the end of this season, Kershaw did get choked up from behind the mic. But, it happened first when he addressed his teammates. They, he told him, were who he was going to miss most.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/b> Hern\u00e1ndez: Roki Sasaki a playoff reliever? Don’t put it past desperate Dodgers<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe hardest one is the teammates, so I’m not even going to look at you guys in the eye,\u201d Kershaw said, his eyes quickly turning red. \u201cJust you guys sitting in this room, you mean so much to me. We have so much fun. I’m going to miss it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe game in and of itself, I’m going to miss a lot, but I’ll be OK without that,\u201d he later added. \u201cI think the hard part is the feeling after a win, celebrating with you guys. That’s pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Days later, that message continues to reverberate.<\/p>\n

For the Dodgers, it served as a reminder and a reset.<\/p>\n

Ever since early July, the team had lived in a world blanketed by frustration and wracked with repeated misery. Many players were hurt or uncharacteristically slumping<\/a>. The team as a whole endured an extended sub-.500 skid. Behind inconsistent offense and unreliable bullpen pitching, a big division lead dwindled. Visions of 120-win grandeur<\/a> were meekly dashed.<\/p>\n

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Amid that slump, the club\u2019s focus drifted. From team production to individual mechanics. From collective urgency to internal dissatisfaction.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/b> Dodgers fall to Giants in regular-season home finale, plan to return in the playoffs<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone on this team has been so busy this year trying to perfect their craft,\u201d third baseman Max Muncy<\/a> said, \u201cthat sometimes we forget about that moment of just hanging out and enjoying what we\u2019re going through. \u201c<\/p>\n

Or, as Kershaw put it after his final regular-season Dodger Stadium start<\/a> on Friday, \u201cthe collective effort to do something hard together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll that stuff is just so impactful, so meaningful,\u201d Kershaw explained.<\/p>\n

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And if it had gone missing during the depths of mostly difficult summer months, Kershaw\u2019s retirement has thrust it back to the forefront.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think it helps reset,\u201d Muncy said. \u201cOver the course of seven, eight months, you see each other every day and sometimes you take that a little bit for granted \u2026 It\u2019s not something that anyone forgot. But sometimes you need a refresher. I think that was a good moment for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t mistake this as a \u201cWin one for Kersh!\u201d attitude. The Dodgers insisted they needed no extra motivation to defend their title, even after what\u2019s been a turbulent repeat campaign.<\/p>\n

But, both players and coaches have noted recently, their efforts this year have sometimes felt misplaced. The togetherness they lauded during last year\u2019s championship march hadn\u2019t always been replicated. A pall was cast over much of the second half.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen you\u2019re not winning games, it\u2019s not fun,\u201d veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said earlier this month. \u201cBut at the end of the day, we gotta put all that aside. \u2026 We have to come here and enjoy ourselves around the clubhouse, regardless of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers did that and more this past weekend, when a celebration of Kershaw \u2014 which included nearly team-wide attendance at his Thursday news conference, several on-field ovations Friday, and Kershaw\u2019s address to Dodger Stadium on Sunday \u2014 was accompanied by three wins out of four against the San Francisco Giants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatching him get choked up when he started talking about the teammates \u2014 it was just a crazy feeling in that room,\u201d pitcher Tyler Glasnow recounted from Thursday\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

Added Muncy: \u201cYou hear when he talks about the stuff he\u2019s gonna miss the most, the stuff that he enjoys the most: It\u2019s being a part of the team. It\u2019s being with the guys. It\u2019s being in the clubhouse.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo hear a guy like him just reinforce that, I think it\u2019s a good message for a lot of people to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/b> Dodgers defeat Giants, but Will Smith’s playoff availability remains a concern<\/a><\/p>\n

In Muncy\u2019s estimation, the Dodgers have \u201cseen a reflection of that out on the field\u201d of late, having moved to the verge of a division title (their magic number entering play Monday was three with a 10-4 record over the last two weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been more of an effort to try and enjoy the moments,\u201d Muncy said. \u201cMake sure we\u2019re still getting our work in, but try to enjoy the moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers made a similar transformation last October, when they used their first-round bye week to build the kind of cohesion<\/a> they had lacked in previous postseason failures<\/a> \u2014 one the team credited constantly in its eventual run to the World Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Kershaw’s retirement might\u2019ve provided a similar spark, highlighting the significance of such intangible dynamics while lifting the gloom that had clouded the team’s last two months.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s obviously been a lot of things to point [to this season], as far as adversities, which all teams go through,\u201d Dodgers manager Dave Roberts<\/a> said. \u201cBut I think that as we’ve gotten to the other side of it \u2026 guys have stuck together and they’ve come out of it stronger, which a lot of the times, that’s what adversity does.\u201d<\/p>\n

More adversity, of course, figures to lie ahead.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers ended the weekend on a sour note, with Blake Treinen suffering the latest bullpen implosion in a 3-1 loss<\/a> on Sunday. They\u2019ll still enter the playoffs in a somewhat unsettled place, needing to navigate around a struggling relief corps and overcome a hand injury to catcher Will Smith<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Read more:<\/b> Shaikin: Clayton Kershaw was always at the heart of the Dodgers’ franchise revival<\/a><\/p>\n

It means, like last year, their path through October is unlikely to be smooth.<\/p>\n

That, after a second half full of frustrations, they\u2019ll have to lean on a culture Kershaw emphasized, and praised, repeatedly over the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have a group of guys in it together, and kind of understanding that and being together, being able to have a ton of fun all the time, is really important,\u201d Kershaw said. \u201cThe older I\u2019ve gotten, the more important [I\u2019ve realized] it is. Like, you can\u2019t just go through your day every day and go through the emotions. You just can\u2019t. It\u2019s too hard, too long to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou gotta have Miggy doing the mic on the bus. You gotta have Kik\u00e9. You gotta have all these guys that are able to keep us having fun and energized every single day. That\u2019s what this group is, and it\u2019s been a blast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.<\/a><\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Dodgers players packed in for Clayton Kershaw\u2019s retirement news conference last Thursday, Freddie Freeman waved the Kershaw…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":248706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[27051,7480,5494,2442,6595,8327,32075,1266,700,22097,1275,62,22888,6601,67,132,68,5956],"class_list":{"0":"post-248705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-blake-treinen","9":"tag-clayton-kershaw","10":"tag-dodger-stadium","11":"tag-dodgers","12":"tag-freddie-freeman","13":"tag-max-muncy","14":"tag-miguel-rojas","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-retirement","17":"tag-robert-gauthier","18":"tag-san-francisco-giants","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-the-dodgers","21":"tag-tyler-glasnow","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-will-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115253190666845807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}