Imrem: Kershaw lived up to his hype

Clayton Kershaw was everything he is supposed to be Sunday night while pitching the Dodgers to a 1-0 victory over the Cubs.

The L.A. lefty is the equalizer in the National League championship series, which now is tied at 1-1.

The impression has been that it'll take the best to beat the Cubs this postseason and they just lost to the best pitcher on the planet.

Kershaw is a throwback who could have played in the glory days of the 1960s when Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Don Drysdale and other Hall of Famers populated the National League.

Appropriately included in Kershaw's total package is one of those old-time deliveries. He brings his hands together in his glove, high over his head, then twists and turns and kicks and deals.

It's all fun to watch unless you have to hit against him.

"Yeah," teammate Chase Utley said matter-of-factly, "he's special."

In a long-ago baseball era the best pitchers took the ball every fourth day instead of every fifth and didn't give it back until mom rang the dinner bell to call them home.

Pitchers were committed to stay out from start to finish and throw a thousand pitches if that's what it took.

You don't see that much today. Complete games are a rarity. Throwing on short rest is uncommon.

Except for Clayton Kershaw and very few others like Madison Bumgarner of the Giants.

During the past week, Kershaw started and beat the Nationals on Tuesday. Two days later, he came on in relief for a save that clinched their NLDS.

Kershaw was back at it Sunday night, pitching Game 2 against the Cubs. He was on the normal four days rest between starts … except for the little matter of the relief stint separating them.

"What he's given us in October is really something special," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of his ace.

Kershaw's week was pretty exhausting stuff by today's namby-pamby pitching standards where nobody believes in pitch counts but everybody counts pitches.

Uh-oh, Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks was up to 56 pitches in just three innings and not long for the game.

Hendricks was gone in the sixth inning after 91 pitches while Kershaw was still dealing through 6 innings and 72 pitches.

Then it was 7 innings and 82 pitches, Kershaw still led the Cubs 1-0 and he looked ready, willing and able to complete what he started.

Instead, Roberts decided that was enough for Kershaw, who yielded 2 walks, 1 walk and 0 runs over his 7 innings.

The Cubs have been successful all season finding a way to beat whatever odds were against them on any given night.

Not this time, though: They just couldn't beat Kershaw and Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen.

The Cubs will get another shot at Kershaw in the series - in Game 6 or maybe as soon as Game 5 - but it might be a good idea to beat the Dodgers' other starters in the meantime.

Cubs manager Joe Maddon said before the game, "The big thing with Kershaw is that if he's on top of his game, man … you're just going to have to outpitch good pitching somehow."

Hendricks tried over his 5.1 innings, allowing the Dodgers only 3 hits and 1 run on Adrian Gonzalez's home run.

Not even that was enough to beat Clayton Kershaw, the best who was at his best.

mimrem@dailyherald.com