LOS ANGELES -- Clayton Kershaw stood in the clubhouse in front of what must have seemed like a hundred reporters, all pointing cameras, recorders and notebooks at him, firing the same question over and over. And every time they asked, he had the same answer, which was really no answer at all.
"I don't know exactly what happened."
To the Dodgers' 21-year-old left-hander, what had transpired a couple hours earlier -- four brilliant innings capped by one disastrous one -- was still a mystery. He had no idea how he could be so good and then so awful.
Tuesday, FanHouse had the opportunity to discuss the MLB Playoffs with Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, who currently serves as a studio analyst for TBS. TBS will be broadcasting all four Division Series and also the NLCS again this season. Ernie Johnson is the studio host while Dennis Eckersley and David Wells join Ripken as studio analysts for these playoff games.
Of all the things Ripken discussed Tuesday, the most intriguing subject, not surprisingly, was one Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod is an oft-maligned regular season superstar, in that he's put up extremely gaudy regular season numbers throughout his career, yet has never played in a World Series and has pretty sub-par numbers in the playoffs overall -- especially of late.
In Advanced Scouting, MLB FanHouse's professional talent evaluator breaks down each of the playoff teams from a scouting perspective.
With a bullpen loaded with power arms and an assortment of pitchers who can shut you down in a variety of ways, the team to vanquish the Dodgers would likely want to do their damage early. The key is to remain patient and try to wait out their quality starting pitchers to get them out of the game by the middle innings.
If you begin to run into the back end of the Dodgers 'pen, chances are things will not go well. Young pitchers like Clayton Kershaw can fall victim to high pitch counts in a playoff atmosphere, so his starts in particular could be turning points in the series.
WASHINGTON -- Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw, sidelined since Sept. 4 with a bruised right shoulder, will pitch in relief either Tuesday or Wednesday, manager Joe Torre said before Los Angeles opened its mid-week series against the Nationals.
Kershaw originally injured his non-throwing shoulder when he ran into a fence while shagging flies during batting practice at Dodger Stadium.
Torre indicated that the 21-year-old southpaw was available to him over the weekend when the Dodgers hosted the Giants.
From the Windup is Matt Snyder's weekly, extended look at some aspect of America's pastime.
As I look ahead to the MLB playoffs, I'm faced with the fact that my beloved Cubbies aren't going to be competing. Being a devout baseball fan, though, there's no way I'm not watching the postseason. Without a horse in the race, I'm forced to focus instead on individuals, and there are always plenty of reasons to watch certain players. Thus, I'm going to list 10 players I'm looking forward to watching and five players I wish I could come October.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That the Cardinals have hit the skids. Well, relatively speaking. The Cardinals have lost two games in a row for the first time since July 25-26. Even worse, their loss on Saturday came after closer Ryan Franklin blew his second consecutive save opportunity, allowing the Braves to score twice in the ninth in a 7-6 defeat.
It's just a hiccup for the Cardinals, who remain 10 1/2 games up on the Cubs in the National League Central. Their magic number for clinching the division is 11. Still, any slump by Franklin is bound to raise some eyebrows, especially this close to the playoffs.
Carpenter, who won the award in 2005, was ruthlessly efficient in a 99-pitch, one-hit shutout of the Brewers on Monday, running his record to 16-3 and dropping his ERA to a stingy 2.16.
"That was Nintendo baseball. That's as good a stuff as I've seen this year. He throws strikes with electric stuff," Brewers right fielder Jody Gerut said.
Poppin' out of the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
John Lackey threw eight innings on Sunday, striking out six and not surrendering an earned run. It was his 100th career victory. He should have been the man of the hour, right?
That would have been the case had Kendry Morales not jacked his 30th home run of the season and stolen the show. At least among fantasy circles, anyway.
Morales had twelve career home runs entering the 2009 season and big shoes to fill as the Angels handed him the keys to the kingdom at first base as Mark Teixeira left for the Yankees. He's handled the task admirably batting .311 and is fast approaching the 100-RBI mark. He's also leading the league in RBI since the all-star break with 45.
From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday -- it's running Friday this week.
Earlier this week, Brad Lidge's nightmare 2009 season continued, when he allowed a walk-off homer to Andrew McCutchen. Ed Price covered the outing the following morning. The abysmal performance by the Phillies' closer underlines the only weakness of the defending World Series Champions.
LOS ANGELES -- Clayton Kershaw stood in the clubhouse in front of what must have seemed like a hundred reporters, all pointing cameras, recorders and notebooks at him, firing the same question over and over. And every time they asked, he had the same answer, which was really no answer at all.
Tuesday, FanHouse had the opportunity to discuss the 
In 
WASHINGTON -- 
Starting Five
