Steve Webb
CHAVEZ RAVINE, CA — I think it’s safe to say Clayton Kershaw is ready for the regular season. The three-time Cy Young winner was in rare form on Sunday night in his final appearance of the Spring. The Dodgers’ lefty ace threw six innings of shutout ball as the Dodgers beat the Angels in the first game of the Freeway Series, 3-0.
Kershaw needed just 74 pitches to go the six innings, and didn’t give up a hit until the second time through the Halos’ lineup when (who else?) Shohei Ohtani ripped a solid single to right to get the Angels into the hit column. There were two other singles after that, but nothing too serious. There were two on in the fifth with two out, but Kershaw induced an inning-ending groundball to short to get out of the mini-jam.
In all his line for the night was about as good as you could hope; 6 IP, 3 H 0 R, 7 K. And among those seven strikeouts, he got Angel slugger Mike Trout on three separate occasions.
Dodger fans will remember that it was against the Angels that Kershaw flirted with a perfect game for the second time last July. In that one, Clayton retired the first 21 hitters he faced before Luis Rengifo broke up the perfecto with a single in the bottom of the eighth.
This game wasn’t quite that dominant, but it was plenty good. One thing to note: Kershaw got called twice for pitch clock violations, causing balls to be awarded to the hitter. Not quite sure what happened there, as during most of the night, he was working quickly and efficiently.
In fact, this game flew by. Nine innings of baseball in just two hours and eight minutes. The Dodgers didn’t have a lot of traffic on the basepaths either. But they got just enough offense to win. Max Muncy and Chris Taylor hit back-to-back solo shots in the 2nd inning, and then later in the ballgame James Outman pulled a homer over the fence in right. And that was all the scoring on the night for either team.
Still, as a warm-up and a little appetizer for the season that is to come, the Boys in Blue checked all the right boxes.
The series continues on Tuesday down in Anaheim. It’s another early start. 6:00 pm first pitch.
