Steve Webb
SAN DIEGO, CA — That could have gone better. Returning to the home of their 2022 playoff humiliation, the Dodgers were having flashbacks all night. A failure to get clutch pitching, and a bigger failure to hit with RISP added up to a 5-2 loss at the hands of the ShoPads. True, they didn’t cough up a late lead like they did in October, but it was still a not great night in Dodgerland.
At the center of the “not greatness” of it all was pitcher Clayton Kershaw. Coming off a dominant April, one might expect that he would pick up right where he left off and dominate the thus-far struggling San Diego hitters.
He didn’t. For a guy who threw nearly 80% strikes his last time out, Kersh was uncharacteristically struggling to find the strike zone. He walked five guys in his outing that didn’t even last five innings. Mix that with two home runs from the bad boy Fernando Tatis Jr. and you’ve got the recipe for a loss.
However, Kersh pitched well enough to keep the Dodgers in the game. Going into the late innings, the Dodgers only trailed by two. That was bloop and blast territory to tie it up. However, Wander Suero came in out of the pen, and couldn’t land a strike, either, walking in the Padre’s fifth run of the game.
Not that it mattered, Josh Hader came in and looked like old school Josh Hader, shutting down the Dodgers in the 9th, surrendering only a walk along the way.
“You just can’t walk five guys. That’s just unacceptable,” Kershaw said after the game. “When you don’t have great command, it makes it challenging no matter what. Usually, that’s not something I have a lot of issues with. But tonight, I didn’t have a great feel. They do a good job. They don’t leave the strike zone. So you have to give them credit, too.”
As for the offense, manager Dave Roberts summed up the night like this: “We had some opportunities early. Couldn’t capitalize,” he said. “Left them in the game, kept them in the game and Tatis had some big hits for them. I think that’s sort of the story of the game and we couldn’t really do anything after that.”
Indeed, after striking first and looking like they had Yu Darvish on the ropes, the Dodgers failed to capitalize on anything during the game. Two runs after that big explosion against the Cards makes one wonder about the big-game abilities of this offense.
It would have been nice to get the first one against the Padres. But, as the Padres know very well, getting the last one is far more important. Let’s shake it off and lace them up again!
Cans of Corn…
- Kershaw’s line for the night: 4.2 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 5 BB, 7 K.
- For those keeping track, with this outing the Kersh WHIP is over 1.00 again.
- These two heavyweights in the NL West are back at it again on Saturday night. Dustin May will try to make Manny and the Padre hitters look ridiculous again. He matches up against a struggling Blake Snell, who always seems to save his best stuff for the Dodgers. Game time 5:40 pm.
- Sunday’s finale is the ESPN game of the week. Plan your day accordingly.
