With the fireworks seemingly out of the way on Noah Syndergaard’s apparent attempt to hit Chase Utley, the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets played the final game of their regular-season series on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcast.
Bartolo Colon retired the Dodgers in order in the first, ending the inning with a strikeout of Justin Turner. Clayton Kershaw fell behind in the count 2-0 to Curtis Granderson, who hit the southpaw’s third pitch for a leadoff double that carried over Joc Pederson’s head.
Granderson advanced to third base on a slow grounder, but he was stranded as Kershaw collected back-to-back strikeouts to get out of the inning unscathed.
Adrian Gonzalez drew a leadoff walk in the second and moved into scoring position with two outs as Howie Kendrick reached on a Colon error. However, both runners were stranded as A.J. Ellis hit a broken-bat liner to second base.
Kershaw struck out the first two batters faced in the bottom of the second en route to retiring the side in order. Utley and Corey Seager combined for back-to-back singles with one out in the third to put runners on the corners.
Wilmer Flores made somewhat of an unnecessary diving stop on Turner’s slow grounder, erasing any chance of the Mets turning an inning-ending double play. They did challenge Seager’s slide into second base, but it was deemed legal, and the Dodgers took a 1-0 lead.
Kershaw picked up his fifth strikeout of the game in the bottom of the third, giving him 100 on the season. With that, he became the first pitcher since 1900 to reach 100 strikeouts with fewer than seven walks in a single season. Kershaw had five walks at the time of reaching the milestone.
CONTINUE READING: Dave Roberts makes questionable decision in eighth inning
