Clayton Kershaw shines as Dodgers beat Padres to regain tie for first
It was the Demon Slayer evening at the Dodger Stadium on Friday.
And not only because the team run a stadium level promotion for an anime television program of the same name.
By beating the San Diego Padres 3-2 in the opening of a three-game pivot rivalry series, the Dodgers killed recently annoying demons.
They returned to equality with the Padres for first place in the West National League.
They obtained six strong heats from Clayton Kershaw; In addition, in a refreshing rhythm change, a lot of clear and clear defense behind him.
And although a program that lost Max Muncy in the injured list with an oblique tension before the game was largely contained by the paadres (which had to go with a set of enclosure of the lifts after the programmed starter Michael King was put aside with a shoulder injury), the enclosure of the readers finally managed to protect a late and narrow advance for what looked like the first time in several weeks.
“Just a really well played ball game,” said manager Dave Roberts. “We needed it.”
Indeed, the Dodgers entered the series of rivalries this weekend in a way that once seemed impossible for the team of $ 400 million this year.
To return to July 4, they were only 12-21. This was a nine game division advance had then been transformed into a deficit in a match by the Padres, which came to Los Angeles at the top thanks to a deadline for monsters and a recent sequence of 14-3.
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More dark clouds arrived a few hours before the first throw, too, when Mancy, who missed Wednesday’s match with side pains, was placed on the injured list with oblique grade 1 tension, putting the key for at least the next few weeks.
This did not mean that the dodgers were panicking. Before the match, Roberts joked, no, in fact, “Tonight is not the match 7 of the World Series”. His players had echoed this same message this week, preaching the need to stay at high level and to remember that the calendar still had a lot of baseball in advance.
“It’s August,” said Kershaw. “It’s not the end of the world.”
However, the season was starting to feel at the edge, however, the dodgers seeking answers to their recently incoherent offense, with unrelated fundamentals and the unwanted lift enclosure (who had wasted five games in the last two weeks).
“I don’t like to be embarrassed. I don’t think our players do it [either]”Said Roberts before the match.” So this series, I expect high intensity and high performance. “
The Dodgers delivered both.
Kershaw has set the tone, displaying vintage behavior even with his things that are still reduced. Before the match, he walked through the clubhouse and looked into his locker, losing a screening report while his teammates are looking carefully around him. Between the sleeves, he quietly punctuated in the canoe while avoiding almost all human contact. And when he was at the top of the mound, he beat the striking area and executed the land after the pitch, giving his only round in the second round when Ramón Laureano (one of the many delay acquisitions of San Diego Greetillants) cut the outside of the left fault pole to open the score.
“There is only no one more intense or concentrated than Clayton,” said Roberts about Kershaw, who has now granted only two points in 18 rounds this month, reducing his ERA from the season to 3.01. “He has a way to raise the concentration and the game of people.”
1 and 1 Teuscar Hernández celebrates as he performs the bases after hitting a solo home run against the paadres during the seventh round on Friday. 2 Manny Machado de San Diego reacts after having removed the first round. 3 and 3 The Dodgers Mookie Betts stops launching the first goal to finish the double game after forcing Freddy Fermin to San Diego at the second goal. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
He certainly appeared this way. Defensively, the Dodgers (69-53) helped Kershaw by turning several difficult games around the inner field-by Freddie Freeman choosing a bullet in dirt in the second round, to Alex Freeland, then Kershaw himself making difficult games for the third and fifth, respectively.
On the plate, the Dodgers also managed to capitalize on an opportunity for bases and without Out, after the simple Michael Comforto and Freeland was followed by a Bunt of Miguel Rojas in Padres that the third goal player Manny Machado could not dive.
“Manny is a gold glover there,” said Roberts. “We took a break there.”
The Dodgers did not get another blow in the English Channel, but Shohei Ohtani led into a round by beating a potential double game ball. Mookie Betts then added a sacrifice fly.
The advance has become 3-1 in the seventh, when Teoscar Hernández completed an opposite field circuit for a massively important race.
“I was in a little struggle,” said Hernández. “Try not to think too much and try to put a good swing in the field that I can get in the typing area.”
From there, it was at the enclosure of the lifts, which was asked to sail in the kind of thin margin at the end of the game which had often spent a disaster during the recent slip of the season of the season.
“We have other guys [in the bullpen]”Said Roberts, who pulled Kershaw after only 76 locations,” who must also do their job. »»
On this night, they did it – despite some late fears.
Dodgers’ rescue launcher, Jack Dreyer, famous after the final of a 3-2 victory against the Padres in San Diego Friday evening at the Dodger Stadium.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Ben Casparius launched a goalless seventh round, but had to shine a double with two withdrawals from Jackson Merrill to do so.
Alex Vesia created a jam in the eighth by hitting two strikers and loading the basics on a walk. But the Padres (69-53) had only one handle, Vesia obtaining Luis Arraez to hit a sacrificial fly before Blake Treinen is removing Manny Machado from a pop-up on the first ground.
In the ninth round, Surprisingly, Roberts did not stand with Treinen – that the team was wary of using for several heats as it continues to return from an elbow injury at the start of the season.
“It was not match 7,” Roberts reiterated. “And we are firmly not to use it for a down.”
However, finally, the result was not turning.
In the ninth, Alexis Díaz and Jack Dreyer launched a simple Merrill to finish things. The Dodgers celebrated with a long-awaited high-five line after finally taking a late lead. And after spending the last 48 hours in second place, the team returned to the top of the ranking, exorciting close demons who had disabled them during their recent mid-season collapse.
“I think that’s how it happens sometimes,” said Kershaw. “Baseball is difficult. When you play every day, things can be a spiral fairly quickly. … So I don’t want to say that, you know:” Hey, we are reset now. “I think we were going well.
