Or ask Greg Maddux, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in July after a masterful 23-year career. Maddux won four consecutive National League Cy Young Awards between 1992 and 1995, the later two with sub-2.00 ERAs. He anchored a preeminent Atlanta Braves pitching staff from 1993 to 2003 that included Cy Young Award winners John Smoltz and Tom Glavine. Glavine also is in the Hall of Fame and Smoltz is likely to be voted in this year. Maddux lost critical games for the Braves in the 1993 NL Championship Series against the Phillies, the 1996 and 1999 World Series against the Yankees, the 1997 NL Division Series against the Marlins, the 2000 NL Division Series against the Cardinals, and the 2001 NL Division Series against the Diamondbacks. Together, Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz celebrated just one World Series championship, in 1995.

Randy Johnson finally found postseason success with Arizona in 2001. (AP)

And there’s Randy Johnson, a five-time Cy Young Award winner — one in 1995 with the Seattle Mariners and four (1999–2002) with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Prior to the 2001 postseason, Johnson had started eight playoff games and took the loss in all but one. Some of those were hard-luck defeats, but not all. In the 1997 and 1999 Division Series (for the Mariners and Diamondbacks, respectively), Johnson simply didn’t pitch to the numbers on the back of his baseball card. For the Mariners fans, especially, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, as Seattle is one of two MLB teams to never play in a World Series.

Then came 2001. Johnson and rotation-mate Curt Schilling powered the Diamondbacks to their only World Series title. The Big Unit won five consecutive decisions — two against the Braves in the Championship Series and three against the Yankees in the World Series. His Game 7 win was a tandem effort with Schilling, who started and pitched 7 2/3 innings of two-run ball. Johnson entered the game with two outs in the eighth with zero days rest — he had pitched seven innings the day before to lead the Diamondbacks to victory — and shut out the Yankees for an inning and a third. Arizona came back and scored two runs off the nearly invincible Mariano Rivera to win the game and the series.

Pitching is hard. Consistently dominant pitching is harder. Consistently dominant pitching in the postseason is harder still. The greats — the best of their generation — falter sometimes. And that’s OK, because every season brings a renewed sense of hope and promise for greatness.

Clayton Kershaw is only 26 years old and in the prime of his career. He plays for one of the most valuable teams in sports, one for which this year’s player salaries topped $250 million. And while money doesn’t necessarily translate to championships, it often provides the tools to at least get a team to the postseason. Barring injuries, we can expect to see Kershaw climb atop the playoff mound for five, maybe 10 more years.

I can’t wait. And, likely, neither can he.