Steve Webb
MIAMI, FL — If there’s one thing we know about Clayton Kershaw, it’s that he relentlessly attacks the zone. That’s why so many hitters jump on his first pitch. He is constantly around the edges of the plate. And if on occasion one slips over the middle and it gets knocked over the fence, nine times out of ten, it’s a solo shot. However, in Miami on Tuesday night, it was ANYTHING but vintage Kershaw as the lefty ace struggle to find his touch all night long in a 6-3 loss to the Marlins. Kershaw himself only gave up three runs, but it was an outing that doesn’t exactly instill confidence in the Dodgers’ rotation going forward. Ugh.
It started out very promising. Kersh had an easy eight-pitch inning in the first and seemed to be right on track to having a good night. However, he walked the lead-off man in the second, an inning in which the Marlins loaded up the bases. If not for back-to-back strikeouts, the Marlins would have pushed across the game’s first runs.
Instead, it was the Dodgers who struck first. Freddie Freeman and Will Smith both had two-out RBI singles in the Dodgers’ half of the third to stake the visitors to a 2-0 lead. However, Kershaw was still walking guys and allowing baserunners, and there are only so many times you can pull a rabbit out of your hat. Jake Burger took him deep leading off the bottom of the fourth. Then, in the bottom of the fifth, one of those walks finally came back to bite him.
After Jorge Soler drew a one-out walk, Kershaw threw switch-hitting slugger Josh Bell what essentially was a batting practice fastball: center-cut, 88-miles-an-hour of pure cookie. Bell didn’t miss it. Once the ball finally landed 429 feet from home, Kershaw was in a 3-2 hole. He got the last couple of outs to end his night on a good note, and Chris Taylor got him off the hook with a homer in the seventh, but nobody could have been pleased with that performance, least of all Kershaw himself.
“It wasn’t great mechanically — control and all that wasn’t great,” Kershaw said after the game. “So yeah, just need to keep going. There’s really nothing else to do. Just try to pitch better.”
“With Clayton, you certainly see the desire to be effective,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “You certainly see the [desire to] compete. I just think the last couple, you just haven’t seen the command. The stuff might be down. It’s where he’s at right now.”
After Taylor’s solo homer tied the game, it looked for a hot minute like the Dodgers might be able to eek out a win despite the lackluster start. However, it was not to be. Ryan Yarbrough surrendered back-to-back dingers in the bottom of the eighth inning to give the Marlins their margin of victory.
The loss puts the Dodgers squarely at .500 the last ten games, having lost four of the last five. And, it raises the specter of the ho-hum way that the team finished the year in 2022, which resulted in a flat team getting beat by the Padres in the NLDS. Not great boys. Need to clean it up. Pronto.
Indeed, though he said that he was “fine” physically, his stuff was down all the way around the board, his fastball not even touching 90. Even Kershaw can’t get around that, no matter how great his curve and slider might be.
The Dodgers get their opportunity to even up the series on Wednesday night, when they send Lance Lynn out to try to redeem himself from that dumpster fire that he threw on Thursday night. He’ll be matched against a former Dodger, J.T. Chargois, who saw duty with LA during the 2018-19 seasons. It’s an opener role for Chargois, so we’ll see what the Marlins have planned after the righty Chargois puts in his time. First pitch is 3:40 PDT.
