Dodgers need another ace despite Clayton Kershaw’s encouraging debut

LOS ANGELES — As Clayton Kershaw jogged out to the mound on a warm, sticky Thursday afternoon at Dodger Stadium, his family watched delightedly a few hundred feet away. His wife, Ellen, wore a No. 22 hat and her husband's jersey as she wiped away tears. She stood next to her kids, who created custom Skechers cleats for their dad to celebrate the occasion. 

The anticipation that had built behind this start, his first in over nine months, was unlike the rest in his franchise record 17 seasons as a Dodger.  

"I think just from the first time having surgery, to the rehab process, to be able to get back out there at Dodger Stadium is something I thought about for a long time," Kershaw said. "So, it meant a lot."

Not just to Kershaw and his family, but also to the Dodgers, who, yet again, will need him more than they would have expected. 

After Kershaw underwent the first surgery of his career in November, a procedure to repair the injured glenohumeral ligaments and capsule in his left shoulder that had limited him throughout the second half of the 2023 season, anything the 36-year-old provided to the Dodgers this year was supposed to be a luxury. He knew he wouldn't be able to return until the summer at the earliest, and the Dodgers prepared for that reality by revamping a rotation that ran out of pieces last year. 

They shelled out $325 million to Nippon Professional Baseball standout Yoshinobu Yamamoto. They traded for Tyler Glasnow, added James Paxton for further depth, awaited the much-anticipated return of Walker Buehler and had a plethora of young pitchers seemingly ready to take the next step in Bobby Miller, Gavin Stone and Emmet Sheehan.

And yet, the Dodgers now enter the week of the trade deadline still seeking