CLAYTON KERSHAW DOESN'T look happy. He never does on the days he pitches. "The worst," says Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis. It's 10 minutes until game time on Aug. 5. Dodgers vs. Angels. Kershaw vs. Trout. Fans squeeze three-deep around the bullpen to gawk at the hurler's final preparations. Fellow starters Josh Beckett, Dan Haren and Hyun-Jin Ryu are here too, close enough to offer support and far enough to stay out of the way. Nobody talks. Just Kershaw's glare and the pop of the ball into Ellis' glove. He bounces a slider in front of the plate, takes the throw back from Ellis and chucks the ball against the bullpen wall in disgust.

"He puts so much pressure on himself; it stresses me out," Haren says. "I'm always like, 'What are you so worked up about? Don't you know you're going to deal?'"

Call it the burden of greatness. When you win two Cy Youngs before your 26th birthday, have the lowest career ERA of any pitcher with 100 starts and 1,000 innings since 1920 and draw legitimate comparisons with Sandy Koufax in his prime, perfection is the mandate.

MIKE TROUT CAN'T stop smiling. Around the batting cage, he teases teammates. Poses for pictures. Signs a handful of autographs. He knows all eyes are on his every move. Yet he doesn't seem to care. "I'm not sure he's ever had a bad day in his life," his father, Jeff, says.

With his last batting practice swing, young Trout crushes a belt-high pitch into the Dodger Stadium parking lot, some 475 feet from home plate. He leaves the cage with a shrug and a grin, like a toddler who didn't realize he was strong enough to knock over the cookie jar. "I wasn't trying to do that," he says later. "It just sort of happened."

Twenty-one teams passed on Trout in the 2009 MLB draft. That makes 21 general managers who should now be out of a job. In a little over three seasons, Trout has produced more wins above replacement (26.3) than any player through his 22-year-old season, according to Baseball-Reference.com, and is one of only four players with three seasons of at least 25 home runs before the age of 23.

"He's on another planet," Ellis says.

KERSHAW FINISHES HIS warm-up tosses. Trout stretches and sprints. This is the first time they'll face each other in a regular-season game.

It's tantalizing to imagine how it will go: Kershaw will stare at Trout through his black leather glove, kick his right knee so it nearly touches his elbow and then fall toward home plate, planting his right foot and unleashing a pitch from his arsenal. Trout will hold a two-tone 31½-ounce piece of maple behind his head. He'll stare back at Kershaw, lift his left foot, shift his weight forward, turn his hips and in a split second decide whether or not to pull his bat through the zone with power and purpose.

And everyone will watch.

It will be only a handful of at-bats in a 162-game season. But it will be more than that too. Two rising superstars just 30 miles down the freeway from each other. The best pitcher and the best position player in the game going head-to-head, testing themselves and giving the rest of us a glimpse of true brilliance. Their managers, guys wired to squelch hype at every turn, are giddy at the prospect.

"With a lot of young guys, you'd worry this is all premature," says the Angels' Mike Scioscia. "But these guys? They're the exception."

"It's one of those classic matchups," says the Dodgers' Don Mattingly. "It's just special."

IN HIS LAST start, Kershaw threw a complete game in a 2-1 victory over the Braves. It was his second consecutive complete game and the 10th time in his past 11 starts he had allowed two or fewer runs. But there was little time to celebrate.

The end of one game is the beginning of another. There are sprints to run. Lineups to analyze. Videos to watch. Weights to lift. Every day, every hour, every minute the screw tightens. "The clock is clicking down and he's ramping up," Ellis says.

Kershaw sees his abilities as a God-given gift he is duty-bound to realize.

"I don't look in the future much, but when people ask how do you want to be remembered, I want to have the respect of my peers," he says. "What that means is you have to do everything you possibly can to prepare for that next start."

Everything is scripted on game day. The bowl of cereal and the banana for breakfast. The once-white-but-now-gray Under Armour shirt beneath his jersey. The pregame nap. The butterfly stretches and long-toss in the outfield. And everyone adhering to what Ellis jokingly calls "the Kershaw rules." No talking about mechanics. No unnecessary mound visits. No touching any of Kershaw's towels. "It's like walking on eggshells," Ellis says.

Kershaw is a man of deep faith. He doesn't curse. But by the time he takes the mound, he's so tightly wound that his wife, Ellen, whom he first asked out in ninth grade, barely recognizes him. "It's hard to believe that person is my husband," she says. "I don't see this guy yelling in his glove or any kind of temper at all. There's this weird removal from this person who is so much a part of my life."

Ellen thinks it began in the minor leagues, where Kershaw realized early on he was different from the others. Even before he got called up to the bigs as a 20-year-old in 2008, he carried the weight of a fan base expecting the next Koufax. "I think all those pressures made for a very confused 20-year-old trying to figure his place in all of this," Ellen says. Though Kershaw and Koufax are now friends, Kershaw dismisses talk that they belong in the same class. "I'm not trying to be unappreciative or say I don't think that's cool," he says. "It's just too hard to think about that and still play the game."

Trout understands the feeling. Since he arrived in Anaheim in 2011, he can't check his Twitter feed without seeing chatter about Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays and talk that he might be better than both. "But I guess I'd rather be talked about in a good way than not be talked about at all," he says. He's aware of the circus around him. He knows what people are saying. But he still sees himself as the kid who calls his parents back home in New Jersey before every game.

"The pressure doesn't faze him. It really doesn't," says Jeff Trout, who played four seasons of minor league ball. "He's a simple guy. He is what he is. And in a game of failure, this serves him well. He's not real introspective."

But he is hungry. The youngest of three siblings, he was always hustling for an edge. Everything -- getting the morning paper, being the first one down for breakfast -- was a competition. Board games and rounds of Sunday golf became family arguments. Even now, in the Angels' clubhouse, Trout stages competitions over simple tasks, like who can throw an empty water bottle into the trash can from the greatest distance. "Everybody is always trying to beat Trout," says Angels pitcher Garrett Richards. "And if you get him, you've got serious bragging rights for the day."

In the hours before the showdown with Kershaw, Trout doesn't walk around the batting cage as much as he struts. It's his natural gait, amplified by his hulking body and by the confidence that comes from knowing what he can do. His muscles look like they're growing muscles. And as he waits his turn, he holds his bat at the barrel, wrapping his fingers around the meaty part of the bone. He moves easily. Fans shout his name, eager to connect, and he almost always points or waves back. "If that were me, I'd walk around with blinders on," says former Angels outfielder Tim Salmon. "He's just the opposite. He has this great way of taking everything in and yet not letting it overwhelm him."