Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Winners of five of their last six, the Dodgers also started the homestand with a win yesterday against the Giants.
Unfortunately, tonight the Dodgers offense never really got going despite getting help from the Giants, and Clayton Kershaw had one of his worst starts against a team he’s historically owned in a 5-4 loss.
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After his extremely promising outing against the Diamondbacks in his season debut, all eyes were on Kershaw to see if that would become a trend or if it was a flash in the pan.
Well it was a bit of a mixed bag. Kershaw was still generally 91-92 mph and touched 93 a couple times. The slider also had nice velocity separation with the fastball, but he didn’t have his command.
That showed early when he had to work out of a bases-loaded jam in the 1st just to escape early disaster. However, in the 3rd, it finally caught up with him as Kershaw surrendered solo dingers to Austin Slater and Mike Yastrzemski. More trouble followed in the 5th, as he gave up another solo shot to Slater and then back-to-back doubles to Donovan Solano and Yaz to plate another and make it 4-0 to the Giants.
Kershaw’s day ended there, struggling through 4.1 innings, giving up four runs on seven hits and a walk. He did strike out six, showing the improved stuff when he found a groove, but it never happened consistently.
Brusdar Graterol took over for him in the 5th, getting out of the inning with two grounders. However, in the 6th, a single, walk, and sac fly led to another run to put the Dodgers down 5-0.
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On the other side, it was rough going against Johnny Cueto early. He had a no-hitter through the 5th, having only given up a walk.
Hilariously, Enrique Hernandez ruined Cueto’s no-hit bid with a triple. Or, more accurately, Hunter Pence ruined it by losing a ball and being off on his read by about 40 feet.
Austin Barnes then at least managed to make contact, and scored Enrique on a ground out to make it 5-1. After Cueto got a pop out, things looked alright, but he quickly unraveled from there. Back-to-back walks to Joc Pederson and Cody Bellinger led to Justin Turner stepping to the plate and crushing a hanging curve to left for a three-run shot to cut the lead to 5-4. All of a sudden it was a game again.
The Dodgers pen kept things close, with Dylan Floro giving up a single in the 7th but nothing else and also notching a strikeout in a scoreless frame. Pedro Baez then went 1-2-3 in the 8th with two strikeouts to continue his quality season. Joe Kelly took over in the 9th, giving up a single but keeping things at 5-4.
As you may have noticed, the bats didn’t provide anything worth updating about in the meantime. For the entire game, they had just two hits and four walks, with one of those hits obviously being gifted to them.
Not great.
