SAN DIEGO – Reporting no discomfort in his troublesome right hip, Clayton Kershaw threw a full-length bullpen session on Tuesday.
The session put Kershaw in line to pitch on Friday against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium.
“That would be his day,” Manager Don Mattingly said.
Kershaw was more guarded about his plans.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll see what they let me do.”
But if he had a vote?
“As soon as possible,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
Kershaw’s bullpen session came two days after a start in Cincinnati.
After his previous start, in Arizona on Sept. 11, he wasn’t able to throw off the mound until 11 days later.
“I have no medical reasoning for why it feels good and it didn’t before,” he said. “I’m not complaining. I feel good now.”
Kershaw still refused to comment on whether off-season surgery was mentioned as a possibility when he visited an orthopedic surgeon in New York last week.
Asked if he now felt any more optimistic about his long-term prognosis, he replied, “I don’t know. I’m optimistic now because it feels good. I didn’t really know what the long term held to begin with. We’ll see what happens. We’re going to make it through how many more starts I have and make a decision from there."
-Dylan Hernandez
