One day after Clayton Kershaw labored through a start against the Pittsburgh Pirates he received treatment on his lower back. That escalated in the days that followed to the Los Angeles Dodgers placing Kershaw on the disabled list with a minor disc herniation.
It marked only the second time in Kershaw’s career where he was forced to the DL by injury, and it was largely viewed as a crippling blow to a Dodgers starting rotation that had already been pieced together.
However, the club responded to go 7-1 in the eight games that followed Kershaw’s loss on June 26. Los Angeles then dropped three in a row before winning three consecutive games leading into the All-Star break.
While the three-time Cy Young Award winner is nearing a return, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts doesn’t want his club to be overly reliant on that, according to ESPN’s Doug Padilla:
“I think that’s part of it, but also the part of it is that Clayton doesn’t pitch every day, it’s every fifth day, and even without Clayton we’re good enough to win baseball games,” Roberts said. “That’s [on] the rest of the guys, to do as we talked about, do a little more. We’re 11-6 without Clayton, but with or without Clayton, we have to continue to get better.”
The Dodgers came out of the All-Star break on a high note, scoring 13 runs and setting a season high with 18 hits to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks in the opener of a three-game series. However, Kenley Jansen blew a save the following night, which led to the Dodgers losing in 12 innings.
Then on Sunday, the Diamondbacks held on for another one-run victory as the Dodgers’ ninth-inning rally fell short. The road trip continues for Los Angeles as they now face the Washington Nationals for three games.
Although losing Kershaw was offset in some regard by the returns of Brandon McCarthy and Hyun-Jin Ryu, the latter was scratched from Wednesday’s start and placed on the 15-day disabled list due to elbow tendinitis.
