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The Los Angeles Dodgers clinched their 13th consecutive playoff berth in the final regular-season home game of franchise legend Clayton Kershaw’s career.
The Dodgers beat the San Francisco Giants 6-3 on Friday night at Dodger Stadium to tie the New York Yankees (1995-2007) for the second-longest playoff streak in major league history.
Only the Atlanta Braves’ streak of 14 straight appearances (1991-2005) is longer.
“Quite the accomplishment,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It never gets old, you never take it for granted. It takes a lot of hard work to get there.”
Kershaw had a no-decision in the win as he pitched 4.1 innings, giving up two earned runs on four hits and four walks while striking out six batters. The 37-year-old announced on Thursday that he would retire at the end of the season.
“I wanted to make sure that we raised a glass to Clayton on this day, his career and kind of acknowledge what we’ve accomplished to get to the postseason,” Roberts said. “That’s one step. The next step is to win this division, so we still got some work to do. Once we do that, then we can focus on the postseason.”
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Kershaw will make one more regular-season start when the team plays the Seattle Mariners next week, but there is no guarantee the future Hall of Famer will be a starter in the playoffs.
With Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell in the Dodgers’ vaunted rotation, Kershaw knows his opportunity to pitch in the postseason might be limited.
“I’m excited for what the next five or six weeks could look like,” Kershaw said. “Our team is honestly stacked with pitching right now. I can do the math. I know there’s only so many spots, so I’m just going to continue to try and pitch well and we’ll see what happens.”
“We’re going to try and win the World Series. I’m ready and willing to do whatever I can to help.”
While the Dodgers clinched a playoff berth, they have not yet clinched the National League West.
The Dodgers lead the second-place San Diego Padres by four games in the NL West race, and their magic number is four to win the division. Los Angeles is trying to win its 12th division title in the last 13 years and needs three more wins to reach 90 for the 12th consecutive year.
The Dodgers (87-67) take on the Giants (76-78) in the second game of their three-game series on Saturday at 9:10 p.m. ET.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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