Dodgers 6, Giants 4: Nick Ahmed’s homer powers win in Clayton Kershaw’s season debut

Chad Moriyama 07/25/2024 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

After taking the first two games of the series, the Dodgers basically gave up late yesterday against the Giants to drop one. Thankfully, today brought better vibes as Clayton Kershaw returned to the mound and looked solid. While the pen eventually blew a lead late, it was Nick Ahmed who victimized his former team from earlier this month, and Brent Honeywell Jr. closed things out in a 6-4 win.

They’re now 6-1 since the break and have taken the series 3-1.

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The big news today was obviously the return of Kershaw to the mound for the Dodgers for the first time in 2024. He faced a bunch of traffic in his start, but mostly managed to limit the damage. He navigated around a two-out double and walk in the 1st, while also giving up just a two-out single in the 2nd.

The 3rd was problematic, as a lead-off single and a Tyler Fitzgerald triple plated a run. Heliot Ramos then singled off Kershaw himself for the Giants’ second run. After another single followed to put a pair on with still nobody out, things seemed like they might be unraveling at that point, but he settled down and struck out the next three batters to escape.

Kershaw couldn’t get a clean frame in his outing, as he issued a walk in the 4th, but he had his swing and miss stuff working, which seems like a good sign.

Opposing him was Logan Webb, who walked Gavin Lux to start the 2nd, and after a Jason Heyward dribbler for an out resulted in Lux moving up a bag, Enrique Hernandez grounded a single against the shift to start their scoring.

The rally started again with Lux in the 4th, as he doubled to lead off the inning and then with one down it was Enrique again who came through, trading places with him to tie things up at 2-2. An Austin Barnes single off Matt Chapman at third lead to Enrique scoring the go-ahead run at 3-2.

Webb got into further trouble when Shohei Ohtani doubled and Teoscar Hernandez walked to load the bases, but he was able to get Freddie Freeman to hit a shallow pop-up for an out.

But the Dodgers picked up where they left off in the 5th, as Andy Pages singled to start and Lux again followed with a hit, singling to corner the runners. The Dodgers did get some insurance, as Jason Heyward grounded into a double play to score Pages, but no RBI in making it 4-2.

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Taking over for Kershaw in the 5th was Joe Kelly, who issued a walk and gave up a single, but also struck out three batters. Daniel Hudson took over in the 6th, issuing a walk but nothing else. Evan Phillips got the 7th in blissful 1-2-3 fashion that hopefully gets him on track.

It was then Alex Vesia in the 8th, who allowed a double to kick his outing off, but then got a pair of strikeouts to put him on the verge of escape. However, a Michael Conforto double followed to plate a run and make it 4-3 Dodgers, which led to Blake Treinen entering. Unfortunately it didn’t help, as Treinen allowed a Jorge Soler single to tie the game at 4-4 before getting out of it.

Thankfully, that tie game didn’t last for long as Ahmed of all people came up and drilled his second homer of the year off his former team to put the Dodgers back on top at 5-4. Then Ohtani went back-to-back with him for his 31st dinger of the year to push things to 6-4.

With the pen depleted, it was Honeywell in the 9th, and he continued to look like an intriguing option by getting a scoreless frame to close things out and secure the victory.

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Kershaw’s fam was there to see it all.

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NL WESTRECORD
Dodgers62-42
Padres55-50 (7.5 GB)

Well now the Dodgers travel to Houston for a series against the hated Astros, starting off on Apple TV+ at 2:10 PM HT/5:10 PM PT/8:10 PM ET. It’ll be Gavin Stone taking the hill against Framber Valdez to kick things off.

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