Clayton Kershaw outduels Max Scherzer in Dodgers

They’ve each performed 18 respective big-league seasons. They’ve mixed for almost 6,500 strikeouts and 436 profession wins. They each have two World Series titles, and three Cy Young Awards. And in the future, they’ll each have plaques in Cooperstown, future first-ballot Hall of Famers who outlined their era of pitching.

For Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer, there’s nothing left to show.

That doesn’t imply, however, that there’s nothing left to play for.

Which is why, on Friday evening at Dodger Stadium, in a pitchers’ duel that noticed both veteran aces flip in classic performances, the 2 icons who have meant so a lot to the game’s past discovered themselves in the middle of its current:

Pitching for first-place groups. Remaining efficient despite their diminished arsenals. And wrapped up in what felt like a pivotal contest getting into their golf equipment’ stretch run of the season.

“It’s always fun to pitch for something. I’ve been super spoiled here that, every year, it’s just what you do,” Kershaw said. “I know Scherz has been that way too, a lot of times. So I think that’s what makes us keep — or at least what makes me keep going. I’m sure Scherz is the same way.”

In the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over Scherzer and the Toronto Blue Jays, it was Kershaw who proved to be a fraction better — giving up only one run to Scherzer’s two on a evening they both went six innings.

“Obviously, pitching against Scherz, you know you’re gonna have a battle on your hands,” Kershaw said afterward. “I got to play with him, I got to compete against him, basically our whole careers.”

Indeed, the first time Kershaw and Scherzer crossed paths was on this same discipline nearly twenty years prior. On Sept. 7, 2008, Kershaw crammed in for one future Hall of Famer, Greg Maddux. Scherzer did the same for another, Randy Johnson, while taking part in for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“You go back to that game, we’re competing all the way back then,” Scherzer said. “It’s kind of a cool little milestone moment here, where we’re hooking it back up against each other, squaring off each other again.”

At that time, neither might have foreseen what lay forward in their careers (including a transient stint as teammates with the Dodgers during their failed title protection in 2021).

Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw delivers in the first inning Friday against the Blue Jays at Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

And wanting back, they may have never envisioned discovering themselves — along with fellow future Hall of Fame pitcher and 3,000-strikeout member Justin Verlander — in an exclusive class of era-defining pitchers.

“I don’t know if it’s our last year,” Kershaw quipped, “but [we’re] toward the end, for sure.”

While that could also be true, both pitchers have stored going with nights such as Friday’s in thoughts.

For Kershaw, this is the first time since 2020 he’s getting into the stretch run of the season without any apparent injury issues — a welcome reduction after being sidelined for last 12 months’s World Series run.

“This is why he came back,” supervisor Dave Roberts said. “To be a part of a pennant race.”

Scherzer, meanwhile, is now more than a month eliminated from an early-season thumb injury, returning just in time to help the upstart Blue Jays (68-49) make a push for a shock American League East crown.

“I’m here to win,” Scherzer said. “This one stings.”

Over Kershaw’s six innings, the 37-year-old left-hander navigated visitors and restricted harm. He gave up seven hits (his second-most all season) and failed to report an out in any of his 4 at-bats against a left-hander (“I got to figure that out,” he bemoaned).

Yet, he held Toronto to only one run with the help of 4 strikeouts and three essential double-plays — none greater than the bases-loaded line drive Mookie Betts snared at shortstop with one out in the second, then flipped to the bag at second to double off a runner.

Mookie Betts celebrates with teammate Teoscar Hernández (37) after hitting a two-run home run for the Dodgers in the fifth inning Friday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“Mookie making that double play in the second kind of really got me going,” said Kershaw, who now has a 3.14 earned-run average in 14 begins this season. “The second inning could have gotten out of hand there.”

The 41-year-old Scherzer, meanwhile, noticed what had been a scoreless evening shattered by two swings in the fifth. First, Shohei Ohtani hit a two-out, ground-rule double over the wall in proper. Then Betts belted a go-ahead, two-run homer on a hanging first-pitch slider — half of a two-hit, three-RBI evening that, after a career-worst 0-for-22 drought earlier this week, now has him six-for-his-last-10.

“A lot more confident now,” Betts said. “We’ll see how tomorrow goes. I enjoyed today. But got to turn the page.”

The Dodgers (67-49) ultimately pulled away late, scoring thrice against the Blue Jays’ bullpen in the seventh.

But by the end of the evening, the eye still revolved around Kershaw and Scherzer — who met afterward in the Dodgers’ home dugout to swap jerseys and pose arm-in-arm for a picture.

“They’ve been battling it out for a long, long time,” Betts said. “It’s really good to see them still going at it. Just a blessing to be a part of something like that.”

How for much longer either veteran will keep taking part in past this season stays unclear.

Though Kershaw is healthy, his fastball continues to sit below 90 mph, forcing him to lean more closely on his go-to slider, trademark curveball and more and more prevalent splitter and sinker.

Scherzer can still contact 96 mph — “It doesn’t look like he’s aged at all,” Kershaw joked — but has also made just 18 complete begins over his last two seasons.

And, as Kershaw playfully added, “he’s way older than me. He’s, like, 41.”

For now, however, both are taking part in important roles for contenders. Both stay efficient despite the heavy mileage on their arms. And if Friday was the last time they match up in the majors (the Dodgers are 4-1 in such contests, including the playoffs) it delivered a riveting, nostalgic and applicable swan music.

“They both are obviously great competitors,” Roberts said. “I don’t know if you’re gonna see this one again.”