The rest of the evening belonged to the legend currently inhabiting the Dodgers dugout, Clayton Kershaw burnishing his Hall-of-Fame resume with seven innings of pure dominance in a 1-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals before a crowd of 48,763 in Chavez Ravine.
Kershaw retired the first 13 batters to kick off a seven-inning, two-hit, nine-strikeout, no-walk effort that improved the three-time National League Cy Young Award winner to 5-1 with a 1.89 ERA in six starts this season.
Of Kershaw’s 88 pitches, 68 were strikes, the second-highest strike percentage (77.1%) of his career. He threw first-pitch strikes to 19 of 23 batters and did not allow a runner past first base.
Kershaw, who notched his 200th career win in his last Dodger Stadium start against the New York Mets on April 18, needed only 43 pitches to breeze through the first four innings, retiring all 12 batters, four by strikeout, and he whiffed Willson Contreras with a nasty 86-mph slider to start the fifth.
But Dylan Carlson reached out for a 2-and-1, up-and-away fastball and poked a clean single to right-center field to break up Kershaw’s perfect game and no-hitter. Kershaw didn’t flinch, striking out Tyler O’Neill with an 87-mph slider and getting Paul DeJong to ground into an inning-ending fielder’s choice.
Kershaw retired the side in order in the sixth, striking out Andrew Knizner and Lars Nootbar with sliders and getting Tommy Edman to ground out. Paul Goldschmidt singled to right to open the seventh but did not even advance to second.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
Kershaw got Nolan Arenado to pop out to second, struck out Contreras on a looping, 71.5-mph curve, his slowest pitch of the night, and got Carlson to pop out to second.
The Dodgers scored in the second inning when James Outman, who had struck out in seven of his previous eight at-bats, grounded a one-out single to left-center field off Cardinals left-hander Jordan Montgomery, stole second, took third when the throw caromed off him and into left field and scored on Austin Barnes’ single to center.
Outman also lined a single to center field in the fourth inning, easing concerns that the hot-hitting rookie, who entered Saturday with a .278 average, .985 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, seven homers and 20 RBIs, might be at the start of his first prolonged big-league slump.
“It’s been a tough few days for James, but even today, he came in fresh and positive, expecting something good to happen, as opposed to kind of running away and hiding,” Roberts said before the game. “You learn from players once they have a little bit of struggle, but our expectation is that James is going to be just fine.”
Carlson, the Cardinals center fielder, prevented the Dodgers from adding onto their lead when he made a spectacular over-the-shoulder, behind-the-head, Jim Edmonds-like catch on the warning track to rob Mookie Betts of extra bases for the second out of the fifth inning.
St. Louis threatened off Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips in the eighth when Knizner walked and shortstop Chris Taylor couldn’t field Nootbar’s hard grounder to his right cleanly, an error put a Cardinals runner on second for the first time in the game.
Pinch-hitter Brendan Donovan followed with a hard line drive toward center fielder, but Taylor was positioned perfectly to make the inning-ending catch. Brusdar Graterol gave up a hit in a scoreless ninth to close out the 2-hour, 14-minute game.