Remember when National League pitchers batted and Clayton Kershaw seemed like an automatic out?
Your memory serves correctly: The Dodgers star left-hander batted an anemic .162 over 847 plate appearances during 13 seasons before MLB mercifully took the bat out of his — and all other pitchers — hands after the 2021 season.
Well, experts considered most adept at running the numbers calculate the likelihood of the Dodgers winning the World Series this October roughly equal to that of Kershaw getting a hit when he used to bat.
Never mind that the Dodgers (98-64) posted the best regular-season record in baseball for the third time in five seasons.