IN SWEEP MODE
Kershaw tosses complete game, Turner belts two HRs and Dodgers hit All-Star break on a 26-4 roll.
If there is a law of gravity in baseball — that what goes up must eventually come down — it does not seem to apply to the Dodgers.
Clayton Kershaw needed 99 pitches to toss his 25th career complete game, striking out 13 and walking none, and newly minted All-Star Justin Turner clubbed a pair of homers to highlight a 5-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals on a steamy 94-degree Sunday in Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers’ sixth straight win completed their major league-leading 10th series sweep and sent them to the All-Star break with a major league-best 61-29 record. They’re 26-4 since June 7, a span in which they turned a two-game National League West deficit into a 71⁄2-game lead.
They have the best run differential (plus-163) in baseball, the game’s best starting pitcher in Kershaw, the NL’s best closer in Kenley Jansen and its best rookie in Cody Bellinger, who has a team-leading 25 homers and 58 RBIs in 70 games. Some nights, they pummel teams; others, they stun them with lategame rallies.
The Dodgers and San Diego Padres are tentatively scheduled to play a regularseason series in Mexico City in April. The games “are anticipated being played but have not been formalized,” Tony Clark, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Assn., said before Sunday’s Futures Game in Miami.
The teams would be natural participants for a series in Mexico City. The Dodgers could feature first baseman Adrian Gonzalez and prospect Alex Verdugo, who played for Mexico in the World Baseball Classic, and pitcher Julio Urias, who the team hopes can return next season from shoulder surgery.
The Padres market extensively in Mexico and played a 1996 regular-season series against the New York Mets in Monterrey. Their ownership group includes Alfredo Harp Helu, owner of the Mexico City Red Devils, who would host the Dodgers-Padres series in their new stadium.
The Dodgers last played internationally in 2014, when they opened the regular season against Arizona in Australia. Clark said logistical hurdles must be resolved before the series can be finalized and that players are supportive of increased international play.
“We understand wholeheartedly the desire to grow our game,” Clark said.
Dodger draft
Jeren Kendall hit 15 homers at Vanderbilt University this season, but the dynamic outfielder’s focus as he begins his professional career with the Dodgers will be to put the ball in play — and not so much out of play — more consistently.
Kendall, a first-round pick who signed for $2.9 million last week, had 74 strikeouts and 24 walks in 261 atbats, acceptable numbers for a pure power hitter but not one with the speed of Kendall, who had 10 doubles, five triples and was successful on 20 of 24 stolen-base attempts.
“You see high strikeout numbers with guys who hit the ball out of park, that’s part of their job,” Kendall said on a conference call Sunday. “But for a guy like me who likes to hit the ball on the ground, my approach should be a little different.
“I’m more of a gap-to-gap guy who can get on and steal bases. I need to put the ball in play more consistently, make the defense play a little more aggressively.”
The 6-foot-1, 190-pound Kendall, who bats left-handed and throws right-handed, reported to the team’s Arizona training facility over the weekend and expects to join Class-A Great Lakes (Mich.) this month.
Short hops
Brandon McCarthy, Alex Wood and Rich Hill will start the Dodgers’ first three games in Miami after the AllStar break. … Shortstop Corey Seager took Sunday off after playing eight of nine games since returning from a right hamstring strain in late June. … Catcher Yasmani Grandal, who left Saturday’s game in the seventh inning because of a bruised left hand, did not play Sunday, but the swelling at the base of his index finger subsided. … Plate umpire Kerwin Danley left Sunday’s game in the second inning after taking a Cody Bellinger foul tip off his face mask in the first. The game resumed with three umpires.