BOSTON — Previous to Saturday night time, the one different time that 18-year-veteran Clayton Kershaw pitched at historic Fenway Park was in Recreation 1 of the 2018 World Collection, an 8-4 loss.
His second journey to Boston’s 113-year-old shrine to baseball, and probably his final, resulted in the identical vogue, because the Dodgers fell, 4-2.
As has been the case so much this season, Kershaw struggled to place batters away, together with the primary three of the second inning, every of whom had two-strike counts earlier than reaching base, culminating in Jarren Duran’s two-run triple to tie the sport.
“The strikeouts the place usually he’s getting these, when he will get two strikes and good counts, it’s been powerful to come back by this 12 months,” mentioned supervisor Dave Roberts.
Within the fifth inning, a 10-pitch at-bat towards Alex Bregman led to a single earlier than Roman Anthony doubled him house to place the hosts up 4-2 and ship Kershaw to the showers.
When the mud settled, the Los Angeles starter had logged solely 4 2/3 innings, his second straight begin of fewer than 5 frames, and he allowed six hits, 4 earned runs and two walks whereas placing out two.
“The second inning was usually not what I wanted it to be,” mentioned Kershaw. “Type of a troublesome time with a variety of various things. Truthfully, after that, the third, fourth, even the fifth, though I gave up that run, I felt fairly stable with all the things.
“We’ll have a look at it tomorrow and attempt to determine what was occurring there within the second. It may have been a brilliant irritating day. Now, it’s solely mildly irritating.”
“He was having some issues with the mound on his land leg, and he was slipping,” mentioned Roberts. “Within the second inning you may see the stuff wasn’t there. The command wasn’t there, after which he labored one thing out in that third and fourth inning.”
Although the 37-year-old has not introduced his retirement, it will likely be two seasons earlier than Los Angeles returns to Boston, leaving a return look for the left-hander in critical doubt.
Requested if his strategy was any totally different due to that, the veteran replied, “It’s clearly a cool ballpark, enjoyable to come back to Fenway. The crowds have been superior. Dodgers followers traveled very well right here, so it’s been enjoyable to be right here, however I’m good to depart, too.”
The Dodgers have been swinging heavy lumber early, demolishing Garrett Crochet choices all around the ballpark as they staked their starter a fast lead.
Shohei Ohtani led off the sport with a 414-foot house run to dead-center, his tenth leadoff shot of the season and the twenty second of his profession. Two batters later, Teoscar Hernández blistered a ball over all the things in left area, 387 toes for a solo shot that put the Dodgers up 2-0.
“Our guys did a superb job getting the lead early,” added Kershaw. “It’s simply irritating not having the ability to maintain the lead.”
Then the lights dimmed shortly from the bats as Crochet locked in and struck out 10 batters over six innings, permitting only one Dodger previous second base after the primary.
“The previous few innings, I felt good with all the things, I simply couldn’t make the adjustment within the second inning, and that’s what price us,” mentioned Kershaw. “Clearly, if you’re going through a man like Crochet, there’s not going to be a variety of runs.”
With the loss, Kershaw fell to 4-2 on the season, and over 4 begins in July, he has gone 0-2 with a 4.71 ERA and solely 10 strikeouts over 21 innings.
“Sometimes, I’ve been fairly stable at making changes pitch-to-pitch,” Kershaw defined. “Some begins are higher than others. This begin took an inning too lengthy.”
