Kershaw brilliant, Zach and Belli go long for Dodgers’ W

LOS ANGELES — Don’t call it a comeback. After a couple straight losses in which he didn’t get much run support, Clayton Kershaw solved that problem by being practically unhittable on Sunday night, striking out thirteen. And to return the favor, the Dodgers’ offense came up big in a six-run second inning, allowing Kersh to cruise to a 7-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs.

Don’t mess with the Kersh

When Kershaw has got “it”, it’s pretty obvious pretty early, and Sunday evening was no exception. In a scoreless first inning, Kershaw punched out two hitters, and was attacking the strike zone with a near perfect slider. He was working both the arm side and the glove side to equal effectiveness and was getting beaucoup swings and misses from the get-go.

Dodgers bat around to score 6 in second

So, when the bottom of the second rolled around and the Dodgers put a six-spot on the board, Kershaw had more than enough to work with. The runs came in bunches in the inning. Matt Beaty led off the inning with a HBP from Cubs starter Adbert Alzolay. This was quickly followed by back-to-back walks for Chris Taylor and Gavin Lux, which brought up Zach McKinstry, hitting out of the seven hole with the bases loaded and nobody out. Alzolay threw a 1-1 slider to McKinstry that caught way too much of the plate, and Zach made him pay dearly for the mistake. He ripped the pitch to right field for his first-ever grand slam. On the first Dodgers’ hit of the game, it was already 4-0.

Cody Bellinger decided to get in on the fun a few batters later when he hit a two-run shot to right center. Coming so soon after his walk-off jack from Saturday night, the Belli bomb was a very welcome development. He now has three home runs on the year, but two in the last 24 hours. Good stuff, and hopefully that will carry right into July.

Kershaw goes deep in win

But the rest of the day belonged to Kershaw. He was simply brilliant, a vintage Kershaw performance. In the strike zone almost all day, he threw 70 out of 101 pitches for strikes, only walking one through eight spectacular innings. And thanks to the shadows in the 4:15 start, the Cubs’ hitters were lost against his breaking stuff. He struck out a season high thirteen, and was never really in a jam for the entire game. The lone blemish on his scorecard on the night was an opposite field home run from Javy Baez in the fourth inning.

The Dodgers added a seventh run in the bottom of the sixth on a Cody Bellinger sac fly after a Mookie Betts triple, but the run definitely felt like an afterthought at that point. It was a “Kershaw Day” through and through.

With this win, couple with a Giants’ loss against Oakland on Sunday afternoon, the Dodgers shave one game off the San Francisco lead. They now trail the Giants by 3.5 games going into a crucial two-game series on Monday and Tuesday. The Boys in Blue will throw a couple of top of the rotation guys at the Giants; Trevor Bauer on Monday, and Walker Buehler on Tuesday. A real opportunity to tighten this thing up considerably. Let’s do this!