San Diego’s dominance against Clayton Kershaw continued in the Dodgers 5-2 loss on Friday night.
The Dodgers struck first, scoring one in the opening frame but could not manage more out of the bases-loaded opportunity. The Padres evened it up quickly with a solo home run from Chris Denorfia in the bottom of the first.
Kershaw gave up two more runs in the third inning off a Chase Headley two-RBI triple and a Kyle Blanks RBI single. The score was 4-1 at that point, and the Dodgers could not do enough to come back, despite getting the lead-off batter on base in six of nine innings.
The only other run the Dodgers scored was in the eighth after Yasiel Puig singled to lead-off the inning and Hanley Ramirez doubled him in. Puig went 2-4 on the night and Ramirez got on base in three of four at bats, including the RBI double.
A.J. Ellis, Skip Schumaker, and Elian Herrera went a combined 1-10 with four strikeouts and a double play in the 6-8 holes of the lineup.
Clayton Kershaw’s poor performance against the Padres has been well documented this season, but just to emphasize, his 5-5 record and 2.06 ERA would be 5-2, 1.44 ERA when his starts against the Padres are not considered.
Against San Diego, he is 0-3 with 17.1 innings pitches, allowing 21 hits, 12 runs, nine earned, eight walks with 21 strikeouts. Five of his six home runs allowed this season have come against the Padres.
The Dodger bats also have not given him any support to back up his shaky starts, with a 3.02 average on the season, and just one run in each of his starts against San Diego.
The Dodgers can still split this four-game series against San Diego by winning the next two games, but they have lost six of their last nine, dating back to June 8th. On Saturday they send Zach Greinke to the hill to face San Diego for the first time since the brawl that broke his collarbone in April.
