October looks brighter with Kershaw, Hill, Maeda

For the first time this season, the Dodgers could see October.

The Chicago Cubs could see October from the day they reported to spring training. The Washington Nationals could see it in April, when they won nine of their first 10 games and Daniel Murphy emerged as Babe Ruth for a new millennium.

The Dodgers? In the first half, their hitters did not hit. In the second half, half the game became the new normal for their starting pitchers, at least for the few that were healthy enough to deliver five innings.

You could see the Dodgers getting into the playoffs. You could not see them lasting very long, at least not until Wednesday.

Game 1? Clayton Kershaw, of course. Kershaw could be back in about two weeks, in plenty of time to prime for October.

Game 2? Rich Hill, who made his blister-delayed Dodgers debut on Wednesday. Hill, the Dodgers’ grand prize at the Aug. 1 trade deadline, pitched six shutout innings in a splendidly tense 1-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium.

“With as much energy as there was in the ballpark, with our fans, Rich raised that level of intensity,” Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts said.

“The environment, the intensity, the excitement,” Hill said, “it was a lot of fun to be out there.”

The Dodgers surged into first place in the National League West without Kershaw or Hill. But October looks much brighter with Kershaw, Hill and Kenta Maeda lined up to face Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Tanner Roark against the Nationals in the division series, or Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester, John Lackey and Kyle Hendricks against the Cubs in the League Championship Series.

It ain’t over till it’s over, and a three-game NL West lead over the Giants with 36 games to play is far from a sure thing, particularly in an even year. But momentum smells a lot like beating two aces —Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto — in the first two games of this showdown series, while dealing another ace into your hand.

Hill’s performance — efficient, lengthy, productive — is the kind the Dodgers have seldom gotten from a starting pitcher this summer. It would be easy to shake your head and say the Dodgers should have tried to sign Hill as a free agent last winter, except they did.

“We probably should have found a way to finish off that deal,” said Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations.

Hill had reinvented himself as a curveball-first pitcher last summer, parlaying four extraordinary starts for the Boston Red Sox in the final month of last season into a surprisingly competitive free-agent market.

He was 35, and he could not expect to command more than a one-year contract. In this era of risk minimization, there is no such thing as a bad one-year contract for a free agent. Hill had his pick of teams, but he had to pick one where he could start.

If four good starts could get him $6 million last winter — as it did from the Oakland Athletics — who knows what 20 good starts could get him in free agency this winter?

The Dodgers had Kershaw. Brett Anderson had just accepted a qualifying offer. They still were hoping to bring back Zack Greinke, and they were talking to Hisashi Iwakuma too. They hoped Hyun-Jin Ryu would return in spring training, and Brandon McCarthy in midseason. Julio Urias and Jose DeLeon loomed.

Hill could not risk it. The A’s guaranteed him a spot in their rotation — and, after four months in Oakland, the Dodgers finally got their man in trade.

“We felt like he was as good of an impact starter as there was available on the market,” Friedman said.

Friedman, remember, had pledged that the Dodgers would pursue “elite-level players” at this trade deadline. Hill might not carry the cachet of Cueto, David Price or Cole Hamels — the elite pitchers on whom Friedman passed at last year’s trade deadline — but Hill now has a 2.09 earned-run average this season.

Of the 141 major league pitchers with at least 80 innings this season, Hill ranks second in ERA.

The pitcher that ranks first is his new teammate, guy by the name of Kershaw.

bill.shaikin@latimes.com

Twitter: @BillShaikin