Column: It’s all lining up for rested Dodgers as they aim for a World Series berth

If Clayton Kershaw looked well-rested on the even of the National League Championship Series, it’s because he was.

He smiled. He cracked jokes.

“It was kind of fun yesterday watching them duke it out while we were kind of sitting around,” he said.

Kershaw was talking about the Chicago Cubs and the Washington Nationals, who required the maximum five games to decide their NL division series.

The Cubs advanced, but not without starter Jose Quintana pitching in relief and closer Wade Davis recording a seven-out save in a game that lasted four hours and 37 minutes.

If that wasn’t draining enough, the Cubs’ chartered overnight flight from Washington to Los Angeles made a detour to New Mexico because of a medical emergency. The Cubs landed Los Angeles around noon Friday with bags under their bloodshot eyes. Their workout at Dodger Stadium later in the day was canceled.

So, for the second consecutive round of this postseason, the Dodgers will have in front of them a beat-up opponent with a disheveled rotation and exhausted bullpen.

The road to the World Series is wide open for them.

Go ahead and call the Dodgers lucky, but remember this: They earned their luck.

Baseball people like to say the regular season has no effect on the postseason, but that’s not the case here. The Dodgers are in the position they are in because they won more games than any other team in the major leagues.

The Dodgers have won five consecutive division championships, but this is the first time in that stretch they posted the league’s best record and earned the NL’s top seed. As much as the Dodgers downplayed that in previous years, it mattered.

In each of their last four division series, the Dodgers went against another division champion and Kershaw made a second start on three-days’ rest.

Their division series last year was particularly exhausting. In addition to making two starts in a four-day span, Kershaw pitched the ninth inning in a Game 5 victory over the Nationals in Washington. When the Dodgers entered the NLCS against the Cubs, they were the walking dead.

Kershaw’s second start of the Championship Series counted as the left-hander’s fifth appearance in 16 days. He lost.

Compare that to this year. When Kershaw pitches in Game 1 of this rematch with the Cubs, he will be pitching for the first time in eight days.

“It’s certainly better to be at home and not have to deal with the travel that they had to endure last night and to be able to set your rotation, get guys rested,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

A significant percentage of postseason series are won by the inferior team. The sport often fails to properly reward the top teams for what they did over the six-month regular season. Look at the Cleveland Indians. They had the best record in the American League and they’re already eliminated.

Here is an instance where the format did what it was supposed to. When Zack Greinke failed to complete the fourth inning of a victory over the Colorado Rockies in the wild-card game, the Arizona Diamondbacks were forced to turn to their prospective starter for Game 1 of the NLDS, Robbie Ray. With Ray unavailable for the opening game of the series, the Diamondbacks instead started Taijuan Walker, who lasted only an inning. The Diamondbacks never recovered and were swept by the Dodgers.

Up next are the Cubs, who spent the last week in a physically and emotionally demanding series against an evenly matched opponent. When manager Joe Maddon spoke at a news conference Friday, he said the team still hadn’t decided on its starter for Game 1 of the NLCS.

Quintana was the preferred choice, but he pitched in relief Thursday night. Another option was John Lackey, the former Angels right-hander who is old enough to have pitched in the last World Series game played in Southern California.

“The adrenaline will be supplied,” Maddon said.

Kershaw acknowledged the Cubs probably wouldn’t feel the effects of the extended division series and ensuing travel for the next day or two.

“In the travel situation or the lack of sleep or things like that, it’s usually not the first day it hits you,” he said. “It’s like the next couple of days after that.”

There is no obvious method to exploit the Cubs’ fatigue on Saturday.

“I don’t know what you do in baseball,” Kershaw said. “In football, you can run faster, you can do plays faster. Basketball, you can run up and down the court. I don’t know what you would do in baseball. Try to play faster? I don’t know what you would do.”

His audience cracked up.

The short monologue was light-hearted and clever, the kind that could only be delivered by a person caught up on sleep.

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com

Follow Dylan Hernandez on Twitter @dylanohernandez