The thought might seem implausible, but it was realistic enough for Kershaw to entertain the line of questioning on Tuesday afternoon, 24 hours before he would take the mound in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. Cody Bellinger advanced to third, and Clayton Kershaw scored, bringing the score to Dodgers 4, Brewers 1.

The Dodgers' offense broke loose with five runs over the fifth, sixth and seventh innings that had the sellout crowd of 54,502 on its feet whipping blue towels and cheering loudly.

LOS ANGELES-If Clayton Kershaw is pitching his final games for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the three-time NL Cy Young Award victor isn't saying.

Milwaukee relief pitcher Brandon Woodruff had come into the game for Wade Miley, who faced one batter in the first inning before heading to the dugout, and was dominating. He struck out nine, all on breaking pitches, and walked two. "The ball kind of got in on me and luckily I found a hole". Orlando Arcia flied out to left, with Chris Taylor and Bellinger almost colliding before Taylor made a sliding catch. Taylor, however, wasn't done. "We're going back home, to me, in a position of strength". "I wanted to be aggressive". Game five had the fans buzzing and ready to roll behind their long-time ace. I dug into the numbers at that point and found that a not-insignificant portion of Kershaw's playoff ERA could be attributed to relievers coming in after him and failing to strand their inherited runners.

Manny Machado has been making quite the name for himself and that may not be a good thing.

Justin Turner added an RBI single in the Dodgers' two-run seventh, a rally that came in handy after the Brewers scored with two out in the ninth.

Teams without home-field advantage that go down 3-2 in a best-of-seven series have won only 25 percent of the time, while those that go up 3-2 have won the series 59 percent of the time. "I think the more and more you see guys, the more you're capable of putting together a game plan and an approach that will work for you".

But first was the clumsy attempt to call time when the Brewers' Corbin Burnes was already in his windup. "We've got some good contributions from guys at the bottom. He's having a bit of a rough patch". Even manager Dave Roberts ran out to congratulate his outfielder, who got soaked with a Gatorade shower. With Kershaw due up next, Puig was standing in the on-deck circle to possibly bat for him, and Alex Wood was warming up in the bullpen. Hill held the Brewers hitless through the first three innings of the game and ultimately surrendered three total hits in his outing along with one run. That made it 2-1 Dodgers. "So it wasn't a huge lobby on my part, but very thankful that Barnes came up huge right there for us".

On Wednesday, the Dodgers will try to move within one victory of their second consecutive World Series berth.

"To go back to Milwaukee up 3-2 as opposed to being down 3-2 is huge for us", Kershaw said.