Dodgers left handed ace Clayton Kershaw had far from his best stuff on Tuesday night at Progressive Field, but still pitched well enough to earn his National League leading ninth win of the season (tied for most in MLB with Dallas Keuchel).
Kershaw worked seven innings, allowing two earned runs on six hits, striking out four and walking two.
The 3-time Cy Young Award Winner admitted after the game he didn’t have command of his fastball all night and it was a big reason why he spent much of the night pitching from behind in the count.
Even on an off night, he was able to use his phenomenal offspeed pitches, especially a lethal curveball to work his way out of jams.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts displayed a high level of trust in Kershaw from early in the game, as there were two separate situations when the lefty allowed leadoff doubles – one in the bottom of the first and one in the bottom of the third.
In both situations, Roberts shifted his infield in towards home plate to try to take away the opportunity to move the runner over and manufacture a run.
In the bottom of the first, Kershaw induced a groundout and two popouts to end the inning.
In the bottom of the third, the shift was successful, as Kershaw got through the first two outs of the inning keeping Daniel Robertson at second base, but Michael Brantley delivered a clutch two-out RBI single.
All things considered, even on an off night, the fact that Roberts was willing to pull his infielders up showed how confident he is in Kershaw to make the pitches he needs to in order to get out of jams.
Kershaw ran into more trouble in the fifth inning, when an unlikely candidate Roberto Perez belted his first home run of the season to tie the game.
From that point forward, Kershaw got better as the game went on, seemingly saving his best stuff for the later innings.
Cleveland inserted Andrew Miller into a bases loaded jam in the top of the sixth with two outs and the game turned into a battle of two of the most talented left handed arms on the planet.
Miller struck out Yasiel Puig to end the inning and leave the bases loaded.
The next inning or so of baseball was fun to watch, as Kershaw set down the side in order in the bottom of the sixth and Miller held serve in the top of the seventh.
Kershaw finished his night with a 1-2-3 bottom of the seventh and rookie sensation Cody Bellinger broke the stalemate with a solo shot to right center, the first home run allowed by Miller this season.
The Dodgers scratched another run across in the inning, as Cleveland’s bullpen began to unravel.
Even on one of Kershaw’s rough nights, he outpitched the Indians staff, including Miller for two innings.
“I was falling behind hitters, behind hitters, behind hitters,” Kershaw said. “It was a little bit of grind tonight, for sure. But kept us in the game long enough for our guys to come through.”
Clayton Kershaw on his outing and how impressed he is by Cody Bellinger pic.twitter.com/9pWVH6ltTy
— Matt Medley (@MedleyHoops) June 14, 2017
Kershaw did not come back into the game for the eighth, as LA owned a 4-2 lead and both bullpens did their fair share of muddying up what had been an otherwise fairly clean pitching performance for seven innings.
The left-handed hitting Bellinger hit another home run in the ninth, a three-run bomb off of Boone Logan – another lefty – to seal the deal. He now has 17 home runs since making his MLB debut on April 25 and has hit multiple homers in four different games.
Kershaw’s final line in the game was not impressive (for his normal standards). He didn’t have the electric stuff we see on TV and imagined he would bring to the ballpark, but in his first career start in Cleveland, the future Hall of Famer showed what separates guys like him from most pitchers to ever play the game: even when he wasn’t on his A Game, he found a way.
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