Clayton Kershaw delivers exactly what the Dodgers need in win over Cardinals
Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw delivers during the first inning Sunday against the St. Louis Cardinals. (Jeff Roberson / Associated Press)
The Dodgers have sent Clayton Kershaw to the mound to give a slumping team a lift countless times during his 18-year career. And they've rarely been disappointed.
So they did it again on a sultry Sunday afternoon in St. Louis and once again Kershaw delivered, earning his first win of the season in a 7-3 victory over the Cardinals that snapped a two-game losing streak and ended a slide that had seen the team lose five of its last seven.
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'He's been a stopper for many years. He's been a staff ace for many years. He's going to the Hall of Fame,' Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game. 'So he understands. And he's going to be prepared.'
Especially after the Cardinals picked at an old wound just before the first pitch, using the massive scoreboard facing the Dodgers' dugout to replay video of Kershaw bent over, hands on knees, after giving up a series-winning home run to Matt Adams in Game 4 of the 2014 National League Division Series.
Kershaw answered that slight with his best outing of an injury-delayed season, allowing just a run on six hits in five innings. He struck out seven, the most he's had in exactly two years, leaving him just 17 strikeouts shy of 3,000 for his career. And more importantly, he did not issue a walk for the first time in five starts.
That performance was especially useful coming a day after the Dodgers' rotation was scrambled before the team's big three-game series with the Padres. Right-hander Tony Gonsolin was moved back to the injured list Saturday with discomfort in his surgically repaired elbow, leaving the Dodgers with 14 pitchers on the IL and without a starter for Tuesday's game in San Diego. A scan of Gonsolin's elbow on Saturday showed no structural damage.
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Michael Kopech, activated from the injured list Saturday, pitched a scoreless inning of relief in the ninth.
For Roberts the most telling stat in Kershaw's line was the lack of walks since Kershaw has struggled with his control in his first brief comeback.
'What's been consistent is the inconsistency of the command,' Roberts said. 'There's certainly uncharacteristic walks in there, getting behind in counts, which is so uncharacteristic with Clayton.'
Read more: Dodgers place starting pitcher Tony Gonsolin on the injured list
Kershaw hit 91.5 mph with his fastball Sunday and averaged 89.6 mph.
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'The velocity is something that he's really mindful of and there might be a little bit of overthrow in there trying to chase a certain number versus just kind of commanding the baseball,' Roberts said. 'He wants both. He wants the velocity and feels he can command the ball.'
Kershaw also became the first Dodger pitcher in the series to get some help from his offense, which scored four times in the first four innings and seven times in the game, the most runs the team has scored in a game this month.
The Dodgers, who stranded 21 baserunners while going one for 25 with runners in scoring position in the first two games in St. Louis, wasted their first scoring opportunity Sunday. After Shohei Ohtani led off with a double to left-center, the next three hitters failed to get the ball out of the infield.
Mookie Betts runs the bases after hitting a solo home run for the Dodgers in the seventh inning Sunday.
(Jeff Roberson / Associated Press)
But they scored three times in the second when three of the first four batters, Max Muncy, Will Smith and former Cardinal Tommy Edman, all singled to center ahead of Hyesong Kim's two-run triple to right.
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A leadoff triple by Smith followed by a one-out double from Edman made it 4-0 in the fourth. And Kershaw, staked to the early lead, sailed into the fifth with a shutout before two singles and a two-out double by Masyn Winn got the Cardinals on the board.
St. Louis added to that against reliever Lou Trivino in the sixth, with Willson Contreras doubling off the left-field wall, then scoring on Alec Burleson's one-out fly ball to center.
The teams traded runs in the seventh with Mookie Betts lining a two-out solo homer just over the wall in left in the seventh and the Cardinals answering with a walk and two-out singles by Brendan Donovan and Contreras.
The Dodgers then closed out the scoring with two runs in a sloppy eighth inning that featured a single, two walks, two batters hit by pitches, a passed ball and a sacrifice fly.
Now, the Dodgers move on to San Diego, which is just a game back in the NL West. Roberts, however, downplayed the importance of the first series of the season against the division rival.
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'Outside of it just [being] a division opponent, and us trying to find a way to win a game, it really doesn't have any extra impact,' he said. 'Right now we're not playing our best baseball, but I think that that environment is going to bring out the best in us.
'It's a fun place to play a ball game. But as far as kind of the stakes right now, I don't think it really has a whole lot of extra.'
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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