Sidelined since June 26 with a mild disk herniation, Kershaw started and pitched three innings in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 4-1 loss to the Miami Marlins on Friday night.
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Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Rich Hill was removed after throwing seven ideal innings in L.A.’s 5-0 win over the Miami Marlins on Saturday night, only to see the bullpen blow it in the eighth.
The three-time Cy Young Award victor and 2014 NL MVP struck out five, did not walk a batter and now has 150 strikeouts against nine free passes in 2016 (see full recap). He rated his outing as “not great”.
“I feel sick to my stomach”, Roberts said immediately after the game. “You try to look at the positives, and I got to pitch again, so that’s good. Not only because you’re facing one of the best pitchers in baseball, and one of the lineups in baseball, because you know your team believes in you and they expect you to do your job the right way”.
Koehler threw five innings against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium back in April. We’re in the middle of this race right now and you just continue to move forward. Yasmani Grandal hit his 25th homer in the ninth for the Dodgers, who tried to rally against Fernando Rodney before A.J. Ramos came in and closed it out for his career-best 33rd save. “But I think there is a bigger picture here, and we all know what it is”. Ichiro Suzuki is 3-for-11 against Hill.Koehler has gone a month without a win despite a stellar performance last time out, when he had to settle for a no-decision after holding Cleveland to three hits over six scoreless innings.
Kershaw gave up a home run to J.T. Realmuto in the first and an RBI single to Chris Johnson in the second.
Giants 11, Diamondbacks 3: Hunter Pence had three hits, including a solo homer, and Johnny Cueto pitched seven solid innings to lead San Francisco. Five of the last six outs Kershaw recorded were via strikeout.
Miami made it 2-0 in the second. “It’s not a ideal world, obviously”.
“No, I didn’t notice [a hot spot on the finger]”.
“In games like this you just want to go out there and compete and give everything that you have”.
But he was on his game from the start on Saturday night, using his 73- and 74-mile-per-hour curveballs and occasional 90-to-92-mile-per-hour fastballs to keep the Marlins off balance.
Nevertheless, he stole from Hill, a chance to reach baseball immortality and clearly the unpopular choice as Hill appeared to be near tears as he stood stunned hanging over the dugout railing after he received the news. His gem came nearly 51 years to the day after the only flawless game thrown by a Dodgers pitcher.
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Joe Blanton relieved the left-handed starter. Kershaw admitted he briefly thought about whether he would ever come back. You’ve seen him the last two years really turn his career around. “And I probably should.” . “It was a little unfortunate that I couldn’t get out there for a couple more innings”.
