Clayton Kershaw's season is over. This time, for sure. Probably.

The strange saga of Kershaw's final week began last week, when the Dodgers moved him up one day, so he would start Wednesday's series finale against the Rockies, figuring the Dodgers owed it to the other contending teams to send their best lineup and pitchers against Colorado.

On Tuesday night, the Dodgers beat the Rockies and mathematically eliminated Colorado from the playoffs. Manager Joe Torre called Kershaw at the team hotel Tuesday night to inform him that he was being scratched from Wednesday's start, and he was done for the year. Torre said Kershaw had thrown enough innings this year.

The theory went, the Dodgers wanted to make sure Hiroki Kuroda would get the final 3 2/3 innings needed to reach 200, so Kuroda would start Sunday, Chad Billingsley on Friday and Ted Lilly on Saturday.

But on Wednesday morning, Kuroda said the 200 innings didn't matter that much to him, so the Dodgers changed their mind and told Kershaw he would pitch Friday at home against the Diamondbacks, followed by Billingsley and Lilly.

Kershaw, a creature of habit and routine between his starts, admitted he'd gone into "I'm done for the year" mode, but he said he would pitch Friday.

Then after Wednesday's game, the Dodgers changed their mind once again, and decided that John Ely would start Friday, and that Kershaw is done for the year.

"Kershaw is like a tennis ball right now," Torre said. "He is pretty much doing whatever we ask him to do."

Torre said he held off on the decision because he wasn't sure if Ely would be needed in relief Wednesday.

In all likelihood, the Dodgers realized there was nothing more for Kerhsaw, 22, to prove this year, and asking him to start once more, after he thought he was done for the year, wasn't a good idea.

Kershaw will end the year with 204 1/3 innings, which is 20 more than his 2009 total (including the playoffs).

One casualty of the decision is an interesting but not significant milestone of becoming the sixth-youngest pitcher, since 1952, to reach 500 career strikeouts. Kershaw has 497 right now. The others are Dwight Gooden, Bert Blyleven, Gary Nolan, Felix Hernandez and Catfish Hunter.

Kershaw went into Wednesday ranked eighth in the league ERA (2.91), 14th in walks plus hits per inning pitched (1.18), fifth in opponents' average (.214), sixth in opponents' on-base percentage (.295), and second in opponents' slugging percentage (.320).

In next year's rotation, Kershaw and Billingsley have the only guaranteed spots. Lilly, Kuroda and Vicente Padilla are free agents.

Even if the Dodgers re-sign all three, which would be tough, they'd need to find additional starting pitchers for depth. Right now, they have nothing else. Ely and Carlos Monasterios haven't proven worthy of pitching every fifth day, and there's nobody else from the minors ready to be a starting pitcher.

DODGERS 7, ROCKIES 6: Matt Kemp hit a grand slam, the fifth of his career, and the Dodgers completed a three-game sweep. The Dodgers are 78-81 and can finish .500 if they sweep Arizona to end the year. If they do, however, they will finish in the top 15 in baseball, and therefore must forfeit a first-round draft pick if they sign a Type A free agent. If they lose one or two games this weekend, they'd likely finish in the bottom 15 and would only give up a second-round pick for free agent compensation.

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