Phillies will miss out on Clayton Kershaw, who is headed to the IL

The Philadelphia Phillies won’t be seeing three-time National League Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw Friday after all.

Kershaw, an eight-time All-Star, was slated to pitch Friday evening for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Phillies. Instead, the Dodgers placed Kershaw on the 10-day injured list “with right SI joint inflammation,” an injury to his hip. The news was first noted by Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic.

With Kershaw unavailable, Dave Roberts and company will instead turn to another lefty in Garrett Cleavinger. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Cleavinger made his major league debut with the Phillies in September of 2020 before being traded to the Dodgers in the deal that allowed the Phillies to acquire José Alvarado from the Tampa Bay Rays in December of that same year. The 28-year-old has a 5.40 ERA in 1 2/3 innings for the Dodgers this season.

While Kershaw is probably past his peak, the 34-year-old remains one of the better pitchers in the game when he’s healthy, as evidenced by the 1.80 ERA and 2.26 FIP that he has in five starts this season. But Kershaw is probably more like a 130-inning pitcher at this stage of his career, rather than the workhorse that he once was.

Regardless of what happens with the remainder of his career, Kershaw is one of the most dominant pitchers that the sport has ever seen. On his career, Kershaw is 189-84 with a 2.48 ERA, 2.76 FIP and 70.5 fWAR. Over on Audacy Sports

, I ranked Kershaw as the fifth-greatest left-handed pitcher in MLB history.

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