By Jon Weisman
This is Clayton Kershaw over his past eight starts:
Unfortunately for Kershaw and the Dodgers, they couldn’t push another run across after Adrian Gonzalez’s second-inning home run and lost to the New York Mets, 2-1.
Not even Howie Kendrick’s sixth-inning stolen base — the Dodgers first after 23 games without one — could rally the Dodgers.
Sevens (in innings, baserunners and strikeouts) weren’t lucky for Kershaw, who allowed one run but left with the score tied. Mets rookie Noah Syndergaard matched well with Kershaw, allowing four baserunners in six innings while striking out six.
.@Mets rookie Noah Syndergaard averaged 97.6 MPH with his fastball tonight, highest by any starter in a game this season.
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) July 4, 2015
“He was really good,” Kershaw said. “Really impressed. We all know when the big prospects come up, they’re gonna have the stuff, but he commanded the ball well on both sides of the plate, threw breaking balls high in counts, things like that. Even threw some changeups in there. Just another Texas kid — what do you expect?”
Asked about the Mansfield, Texas native’s curveball, Kershaw half-laughed and said, “It’s about 10 mph harder than mine.”
Said The Associated Press: “According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no Mets rookie has defeated a reigning Cy Young winner since April 17, 1968, when Jerry Koosman beat San Francisco’s Mike McCormick 3-0 in the Mets’ home opener with a complete-game seven-hitter.”
For the first time this year, Kershaw walked the leadoff batter of the game and two batters in the first inning — but that jam, he escaped.
It was when he gave up a leadoff double in the fourth inning to .193-hitting John Mayberry and then wild-pitched him to third on a curve that Kershaw got bit. One out later, Wilmer Flores singled between a drawn-in Howie Kendrick and Gonzalez for the tying run.
“Mayberry wasn’t a mistake — that was a ground ball,” Kershaw said. “That inning, I don’t think anything I could have done different. It evened out — (Kevin Plawecki) hit a hard grounder right at Jimmy (Rollins), and (Daniel) Murphy hit a hard line drive right at (Justin Turner), so it kind of evened out the bloops with the hard-hit balls, but they put ’em in a row and got a run.”
The winning run scored off Kenley Jansen in the ninth on a 225-foot bloop Lucas Duda double that MLB measured at 74 mph off the bat, an infield single off Jansen’s glove by Flores and a sacrifice fly by Kevin Plawecki. The final batter of the game, Andre Ethier, lined a shot 101 mph off the bat, but directly at right fielder Curtis Granderson.
As Mark Simon of ESPN.com noted, all three times the Mets made contact off Jansen came on 0-2 pitches. Previously, Jansen had struck out 17 of the 20 hitters on whom had gotten the first two strikes.
The loss left the Dodgers at 45-36 at the season’s halfway point, three games ahead of San Francisco.
“I think we’re doing OK, but there’s a lot more in there for us to play better,” Kershaw said. “I feel like we’re a little bit in neutral by now. … We’re in first at the halfway point, so there’s a lot to be said for that.”
Michael Green
Last night, I had the pleasure(?) of listening to (and watching) the ESPN telecast, and so got to listen to the announcers, including Rick Sutcliffe, explain how Kershaw is “off” and doesn’t have his “control.” It was like being adrift in one of the blogs where the authors explain that Don Mattingly is a failure as manager because the Dodgers don’t steal and sacrifice enough, and is a failure when the Dodgers do because they should have been avoiding those things. Sigh.
oldbrooklynfan
Being up by 3 games in first place makes it a lot easier.