Dodgers keep Athletics MLB’s lone winless team
The fly ball landed a few hundred feet away, down the left-field line, and Clayton Kershaw was convinced that it didn’t sail inside the foul pole at RingCentral Coliseum on Tuesday night.
To him, it was obvious, and he emphatically pleaded his case, initially to no avail as Stephen Piscotty trotted around the bases thinking that he had cracked Kershaw. That maybe, just maybe, the Oakland Athletics, the lone remaining winless team in the American League, had a chance to mount a comeback and beat the Dodgers.
That hope was crushed within moments. The umpiring crew convened and changed the call to a foul ball. A quick replay review confirmed the switch. The home run was erased, Piscotty grounded out to end the fourth inning, and Kershaw didn’t stop mowing down the Athletics in the Dodgers’ 5-1 win.
Fueled by a nasty slider, Kershaw retired 20 of the final 22 hitters he faced after yielding a run on back-to-back doubles in the first inning. He surrendered the one run on four hits across seven innings. He had eight strikeouts without a walk and
threw 91 pitches.
The Dodgers, playing without Cody Bellinger (calf) and Chris Taylor (elbow), tied the game in the second inning when catcher Austin Barnes delivered an RBI double off Athletics right-hander Chris Bassitt. The Dodgers took the lead for good when Max Muncy, after collecting three hits Monday, lined a two-run home run in the third inning.
Two batters later, Edwin Ríos smashed a curveball for a homer. Mookie Betts slugged a solo homer, his first of the season, for an insurance run in the ninth. It was the last of the Dodgers’ 11 hits -- their fifth double-digit hit output of the season.
Blake Treinen tossed a scoreless eighth inning and Kenley Jansen stranded two runners in the ninth to seal the fifth straight win for the Dodgers (5-1) while the Athletics fell to 0-6 for the first time in franchise history since the 1916 Philadelphia A’s. They are the first team to start 0-6 since the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves in 2016.
The Dodgers’ only loss this season came in Kershaw’s first start. Kershaw returned to the mound Tuesday after he followed a rough exhibition slate with a forgettable season debut opening day against the Colorado Rockies.
The left-hander yielded six runs, five earned, on 10 hits in the loss at Coors Field. Just five of his 77 pitches generated swingand-misses. He was the only Dodgers starter who didn’t log at least six innings in the rotation’s first turn.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pointed to the lack of depth on Kershaw’s slider as the primary reason for his trouble. Pitching in the thin air, Roberts acknowledged, didn’t help.