Giants @ Dodgers September 19, 2025: Clayton Kershaw makes his final regular season start at Dodger Stadium

The Dodgers (86-67) held on for a win in the opener against the Giants last night, as they survived allowing 10 walks as a pitching staff for a 2-1 win. The win (and a Mets win over the Padres) put the Dodgers three games up in the West with nine games left, shrinking the Magic Number to 6 in the West. It also shrinks the Magic Number for a playoff spot down to 1, so they could clinch a spot tonight. Whether it happens tonight or not, tonight will definitely be a special night as Clayton Kershaw takes the ball for the final time in the regular season at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw announced yesterday that this will be his last year (Dustin wrote about it here) and with the Dodgers ending their season with six road games after this Giants series, Kershaw’s next chance to pitch at home will be in the postseason.

	7:10 P.M.		Los Angeles
LF	Ramos	DH	Ohtani (L)
SS	Adames	SS	Betts
DH	Devers (L)	RF	T. Hernández
3B	Chapman	1B	Freeman (L)
1B	Flores	CF	Edman (S)
2B	Schmitt	2B	Rojas
RF	Encarnacion	LF	Pages
C	Bailey (S)	3B	K. Hernández
CF	Gilbert (L)	C	Rushing (L)
P	Ray (L)	P	Kershaw (L)

Kershaw makes his 21st start of the season and his 228th and final start at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw’s coming off an uncharacteristically bad start in San Francisco, a stadium where he’s dominated in his career. The Giants put up four runs on Kershaw in the first and got pulled after three innings with four runs, four walks and only two strikeouts. The first inning has been the issue for Kershaw this season, with a 7.65 ERA and .878 OPS allowed in the first and sub 3.00 ERA’s in every other inning besides the sixth, which he’s pitched into nine times. Kershaw did have a pretty classic Kershaw start back in June against the Giants in LA, where he struck out five in seven shutout innings. This also marks the 32nd time Kershaw has faced the Giants in LA. He has a 2.30 ERA in those 31 career starts and 231 strikeouts with only 36 walks issued (splits tool doesn’t make it easy to see his record in these games, but I think it’s 12-9).

Robbie Ray looks to spoil the party today. Ray’s actually had a solid season this year with a 3.50 ERA/3.77 FIP over 177 2/3 innings over 31 starts. He’s fallen back to earth after an All-Star first half, with a 5.22 ERA/4.20 FIP (nice) in his 11 starts since the break. Those numbers have been extra rough of late, as he’s failed to complete five innings in three of his last four starts after doing so only four times in his first 27 starts. He’s allowed 17 earned runs in his 18 innings over those four starts, including five runs and six hits in four innings against the Dodgers last weekend. Ray leads the NL in walks allowed (71) and his 9.7 percent walk rate is tied for the fourth-worst in baseball among qualified starters.

Ray throws a fastball (51.6 percent), slider (22.6 percent), change (13.1 percent, exclusively to righties), knuckle curve (12.3 percent) and has thrown 12 sweepers this season. Each pitch has a whiff rate over 20 percent, with the lowest being a 23.8 percent whiff rate on his fastball. Despite throwing a slider less than half as much as he throws a fastball, Ray’s only allowed two fewer homers on the slider. Of the 98 pitches he threw against the Dodgers last time out, he threw 57 fastballs, 28 sliders, seven knuckle curves and six changes.

Dalton Rushing returns to the lineup for the first time since returning from the IL. With a lefty on the hill, Andy Pages slides over to left with Tommy Edman in center and Enrique Hernandez gets the start at third.

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In non-Kershaw news, Michael Kopech‘s season is done.

Michael Kopech is going on the injured list, Dave Roberts said

Roberts said they are going to “reset him” and are hoping he can still be an option in the postseason

— Jack Harris (@ByJackHarris) September 19, 2025

This seemed like the likely move after his struggles last night, as he’s dealing with a couple things in his body. Will Klein is back up for the first time since July 26. Klein made 13 appearances at OKC since then and had a really weird time. He posted a 3.86 ERA in 16 1/3 innings and allowed a .143/.342/.179 slash line in that time. He only allowed two extra base hits (both doubles) in that time, but walked 16 batters. He did strike out 30 batters, so there’s that.

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First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PT. Naturally because we can’t have nice things, this monumental game is an Apple TV+ exclusive.