Kershaw overpowers Braves as Dodgers roll in NLDS opener
ATLANTA — Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers opened the playoffs looking intent on ending that quarter-century drought since their last World Series championship.
For the Atlanta Braves, another dose of October misery.
Kershaw struck out 12 during seven dominant innings, Adrian Gonzalez hit a tworun homer and the Dodgers beat the bumbling Braves 6-1 in Game 1 of the NL division series Thursday night.
The big-money Dodgers haven’t won a Series title since 1988 — by far their longest dry spell since the franchise moved from Brooklyn to Southern California in 1958.
In an interesting twist, Kershaw was born just a few months before that most recent title. If the left-hander keeps pitching the way he did against Atlanta, the Dodgers might have a chance to go all the way again.
“He’s the best pitcher in baseball,” Gonzalez said, “and he showed it tonight.”
Kershaw, who had a 1.83 ERA during the regular season, limited the Braves to Chris Johnson’s run-scoring single with two outs in the fourth. That just seemed to make the pitcher mad — he struck out Andrelton Simmons to end Atlanta’s only serious threat and the next five Braves hitters for good measure.
Appropriately, Kershaw finished up by striking out the side in the seventh, matching his season high for Ks. He allowed just three hits.
“He turned it up the next three or four innings and we didn’t really get good swings at him,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said.
“But offensively I thought we had a good game plan, we followed it, we were patient.”
Atlanta struck out 15 times in all.
Even though slugger Matt Kemp is out for the playoffs and Andre Ethier is hobbling with an injured ankle, the Dodgers had no trouble piling up runs against Kris Medlen and the Braves.
The Atlanta starter, who came into the playoffs riding a five-game winning streak, gave up nine hits and five runs in four-plus innings. Medlen finally got the hook when he plunked Yasiel Puig with a pitch right between the shoulder blades.
“I think I need to make better pitches,” Medlen said. “I think it was just one of those games where even when I felt like I made pitches, they still found places to put them. They’re a great team and when you have an opposing pitcher on the mound who is as good as Kershaw, I mean, there’s not a lot of room for error — and I had a lot of error tonight.”
Of course, Medlen would’ve fared better if he’d gotten any help from the guys behind him.
The Braves played some truly atrocious defence, though they were not charged with an error.
“I thought there was a couple plays that we could have made,” Fredi Gonzalez said. “I think that the guys were just a little amped up.”