The Los Angeles Dodgers were not able to complete a two-game sweep of the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday night as despite withstanding Mike Fiers’ bid for a perfect game and erasing an early 2-0 deficit, they wound up falling, 3-2.
Clayton Kershaw got the start on the mound and clearly did not have his best stuff, striking out just one batter, which was a season low. He managed to get through six innings though, allowing just six hits and two runs without walking a hitter.
Since coming off the disabled list at the end of June, Kershaw has given up three runs or less in all nine of his starts, which is definitely a positive sign for the Dodgers.
But Kershaw was the first to admit that Wednesday was not his best start, although he was happy to get through six innings to keep his team in the game, via SportsNet LA:
“I didn’t have much of anything tonight. It was a little bit of smoke and mirrors. It’s a good team over there and I was getting ahead of a few guys but especially in that fourth inning when they scored the runs, a lot of hits with two strikes right there. I didn’t really have those put-away pitches when I needed to tonight. I felt fortunate to grind through six right there and our team did a good job of battling back and we had a chance to win at least, so there’s a few positives to take from it. But this was definitely not one of my memorable performances, for sure.”
Kershaw only has 99 strikeouts in 101.1 innings so far this season. If he finishes the year with fewer strikeouts than innings pitched then it would mark the first time since 2013 and only the third time in his career that would happen.
He still has a 2.58 ERA and 1.07 WHIP on the year though, which are among the league’s best.
