Utley appeal on hold until Monday

Winning when he couldn’t afford to lose, that was the problem.

Kershaw took care of that Tuesday, when he allowed one run on three hits and one walk while striking out eight.

Of the four division series, three need a deciding game ” with the Mets to head to Dodger Stadium for their clash on Thursday. Kershaw said it was “impressive” to watch the 23-year-old deGrom “because it’s tough to get a lot of strikeouts with heaters like that”. Unfortunately Jacob deGrom of the Mets pitched a little better.

Unable to muster much offense against Kershaw, the Mets squandered their chance to close out the series at home. “We want Utley”, they chanted. That one ended with Wright’s two-run single off reliever Pedro Baez and with Kershaw losing his fifth straight postseason start. A timely two-run, two-out double from Justin Turner gave the Dodgers a 3-0 lead, one they wouldn’t relinquish.

Kershaw, 27, is 114-56 with a 2.43 ERA in the regular season, with three Cy Young Awards and an MVP since 2011. “Our guys were really happy to get him this win, though”. I mean, this kid is tremendous.

“Cespedes hits that chopper to lead off the inning, and (it’s) like, ‘Oh, here we go, ‘” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. “Makes you want to prove him right, for sure”. Would it have been different with deGrom, who outpitched Kershaw in Game 1?

Knowing Kershaw was pitching on three days’ rest, the Mets aimed to work his pitch count again, and were able to do that in the first as they forced him to throw 18 pitches.

But this time, Kershaw was just as dominant as he normally is during the regular season.

“There’s no curse or anything”, he said.

Yet in Game 4, he got out of the seventh unscathed.

Clayton Kershaw looked nearly untouchable until the fourth inning, when he gave up his second home run of the series to Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy.

Kenley Jansen got four outs for his second save. Now the odds for the game have the Dodgers favored to pick up the victory on the road.

Pitching on three days’ rest and on a five-start postseason skid, Kershaw kept the simmering crowd of 44,183 at bay while on the mound.

Matz hasn’t pitched in a Major League Baseball game since September 24. Howie Kendrick singled with two out, and then Adrian Gonzalez’s pop fly dropped in short center, an RBI single. New York could only scatter three hits and three walks on the night.

“The ball was still coming out of his hand good”, Mattingly said.

Tuesday night’s Dodgers vs. Mets Game 4 has a scheduled start time of 8:07 p.m. Eastern Time.

Kershaw was 16-7 with a 2.13 ERA this season, going 11-1 with a 1.22 ERA and four complete games – three shutouts – in his final 17 starts. “But at that point, we knew that was going to be it for him”. As the underdogs, the home team Mets are priced around +135 and higher, while the run line is set at 6-1/2 runs for the entire game.

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Steven Matz had one bad inning in his first postseason start, all the leeway Clayton Kershaw needed to keep the Mets from advancing to the NL Championship Series in front of their orange towel-twirling fans. Last season’s NL Rookie of the Year struck out 13, matching Tom Seaver’s franchise record for a postseason game.