Clayton Kershaw shines as Los Angeles Dodgers defeat San Francisco Giants 1-0 – MLB Update
Clayton Kershaw expressed his superiority saving the Los Angeles Dodgers from a series sweep rallying his club into a shut-out win over the defending World Series champions San Francisco Giants 1-0 at AT&T Park on Wednesday, July 20.
The 23-year-old energetic hurler struck-out 12 batters, walking a single batter and allowing three hits over eight innings. The left-handed pitcher tossed 70 strikes of 112 pitches to improve his record to 11-4 with 2.72 ERA in 21 starts. It was his third
straight win and two of them were shut-outs.
The hard-throwing pitcher managed to lower in opposition to defending World Series champions to 1.41, the lowest for any pitcher against the Giants. Kershaw pleaded many times to his manager to carry on his game into the ninth just to destroy the Giants
but Don Mattingly was of another view.
"I was waffling a little bit, to be honest with you," Mattingly said of Kershaw. "I just felt like he did his job."
Javy Guerra did the best to toss a scoreless last inning and proved Mattingly’s decision as an accurate one. He punched out one batter, tossing a short ten pitch innings.
Giants’ Tim Lincecum also made more than 100 pitches to hold the Dodgers scoreless in his first six innings. However, his seventh started with a homer by the Dodgers’ catcher Dioner Navarro which restricted the Giants from another series sweep at home.
A hit wasted Lincecum’s seven strike-outs in seven innings and cost him his eighth loss of the season in 21 starts. Javier Lopez went for only five pitches and left the mound after allowing a walk to Andre Ethier. However, Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla
tossed scoreless one inning spell. Each did not allow even a single hit.
This has been a bad game for Lincecum while facing Kershaw, as he has lost all four times he entered the field against the Dodgers backbone pitcher. Kershaw, on the other hand has became the Dodgers’ player to win six outings with at least ten strike-outs
in a single season. He is also sharing the same spot with Philadelphia Phillies’ Cliff Lee with the most in this season.
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