Dodgers 5, White Sox 2: Rather be BABIP than good

So … that happened tonight.

The deciding half-inning of the Dodgers game against the White Sox came down to a five-run “assault” that consisted of a walk, two errors, two ground ball singles, a bloop single in no-man’s land, and an Adrian Gonzalez infield single. It was the first time the Dodgers had batted around all year and it was because of luck (because of course), but it sat just fine with me either way.

Clayton Kershaw took the hill for the Dodgers and was perfect through 3.1 innings. Unfortunately, he gave up a 1-2 meatball to Gordon Beckham for a single, and then hung a 0-1 change to human homerun factory, Jose Abreu. So that’s wasn’t normal Kershaw, but the rest of it? Yeah, pretty much. Kershaw cruised through eight innings of four-hit ball on 97 pitches, striking out nine and walking none. His FIP and xFIP on the year are now 1.91 and 1.85, respectively, so it’s safe to say that he’s been doing fine thus far minus the blip against the Diamondbacks.

Kenley Jansen, who hadn’t worked in five days, entered in the ninth with a three-run lead and shut the door. But not before allowing a dribbling infield single to third, which increased his BABIP to a stupid .400. Frustrated with the balls-in-play part about BABIP, he proceeded to strikeout the side and not deal with stupid luck.

Can’t wait till they replace Kenley Jansen as closer.

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–Dee Gordon and his 772 OPS/449 OPS split sat against lefty starter Jose Quintana. Dee also had a .620 OPS in May, so maybe a breather was necessary. If Gordon can’t hit lefties long-term, maybe a platoon with Alex Guerrero is indeed in the cards, but Dee’s defense at this point might be worth the lefty struggles anyway.

–Yasiel Puig went 0-for-4 but reached safely for the 34th straight game on an error by Gordon Beckham. Puig struck out once, but otherwise hit the ball hard to Beckham three times, with Beckham making two quality plays and booting it once.

–Scott Van Slyke started in center and was fine. Granted, he wasn’t tested much, but he hustled over to cut-off a Beckham single into the gap and got a solid jump on one fly ball.