The offense scored 11 times. Shohei Ohtani hit two home runs. And the team regained sole possession of first place in the division.
But on a night of all-around excellence from the Dodgers, no one impressed quite like the man who endures as the most familiar face on the team.
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Clayton Kershaw might only throw 90 mph (on a good fastball) now. He might lack the ever-imposing aura that emanated through the peak of his career.
But at 37 years old, and in his 18th MLB season, the future Hall of Fame left-hander can still consistently locate his pitches, still instinctively mix his three-pitch arsenal and still pitch — in every meaning of the word — his way through a big league outing.
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It’s why he wanted to keep playing this season, even after a 2023 shoulder surgery and 2024 toe and knee procedures. Why he still holds a place in the Dodgers’ starting rotation, one that has counted on him to compensate for a swath of injuries in the season’s opening two months. And why, when handed a big early lead Saturday against the San Francisco Giants, he knew exactly what to do, breezing through a scoreless seven-inning, three-hit, five-strikeout gem in the Dodgers’ 11-5 win at Dodger Stadium.
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Saturday was not exactly a daunting task for Kershaw.
He was facing a Giants lineup that ranks 25th in the majors in batting average. He had the luxury of a six-run lead by the top of the third inning. The assignment, at that point, was simple: Get quick outs, keep his pitch count under control, and ensure a lopsided score stayed that way in a game that put the Dodgers (42-29) one game ahead of the Giants (41-30) in the National League West standings.
All that, he had done countless times before.
The fact he can still perform, however, inspired awe throughout the ballpark, with 51,548 in attendance witnessing his 65th career start featuring seven scoreless innings.
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In the lead-up to the game, manager Dave Roberts noted a few simple keys for Kershaw against the Giants. An aggressive team, Roberts expected early contact that would require precision on pitches in the strike zone. He also noted the proliferation of right-handed bats in San Francisco’s lineup.
“We’re going to need the slider tonight,” Roberts said. “If he could command that fastball on both sides of the plate, and present that slider as a strike, it should be a good outing for him.”
Kershaw began executing that script quickly.
In the first, he erased a leadoff walk to Jung Hoo Lee by getting Heliot Ramos to ground into an inning-ending double-play, snapping off an outer-half slider to escape one of his few jams.
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In the second, he needed just four pitches to retire the side in order, capitalizing on a string of well-located offerings for a lightning-quick inning.
By the time Kershaw returned to the mound, the Dodgers had surged ahead.
Ohtani began the onslaught with his seventh leadoff home run of the season. The Dodgers ambushed Giants starter Landen Roupp — a second-year right-hander who entered with a 3.29 earned-run average in 13 starts — for five runs in the second.
Up 6-0, Kershaw found a groove. He stranded a leadoff double in the third, collecting the first of his five strikeouts along the way; a total that leaves him just 12 shy of reaching 3,000 strikeouts for his career.
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He did the same thing in the fifth, ending the inning with two vintage swing-and-miss curveballs that left Tyler Fitzgerald looking silly.
On the whole, Kershaw got eight swings-and-misses, building upon the strides he took in a seven-strikeout performance against the St. Louis Cardinals last week.
And by the time he finished Saturday’s outing with a clean seventh inning — retiring nine of his last 10 batters en route to his first seven-inning start since 2023 — he was getting a standing ovation from the Chavez Ravine faithful, and a long line of high-fives from coaches and teammates in the dugout.
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Prime Kershaw, this is still not. His fastball averaged only 88.4 mph, down a tick from its already diminished average, and it generated no whiffs. Even his slider, which remains his go-to secondary weapon, was fanned on only three times in 15 swings.
Yet, he posted a string of zeroes anyway. He lowered his season ERA to 3.25. And he showed that, even now, he is capable of greatness on any given night.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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