Los Angeles Dodgers defeat San Francisco Giants 2-1 – MLB Update
Clayton Kershaw had nine strike-outs in seven innings to help the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 2-1 victory against the defending World Series Champions San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles on March 31.
Kershaw permitted just one walk and four hits. The left-hander proved to be the key player of the Dodgers by his impressive pitching. He had his first start in the regular season. The 23-year-old Kershaw struck-out three hitters in the first inning and achieved
a milestone of 500 strike-outs in his baseball career. He was also satisfied with this performance and expects better for the next games.
Matt Kemp also participated in the win by posting a leading run on a pitching fault by catcher Buster Posey in the sixth inning. Kemp made a walk with one out while James Loney went after short-stop Miguel Tejada, who pitched the ball away and permitted
Kemp to take a third run. Rod Barajas, a substitute for Russell Martin as the Dodgers' catcher, also admired Kershaw’s performance.
Barajas said, “Clayton is special. He's got a gift. He just continues to develop and gets better every time he goes out there. He makes a couple bad pitches and he's able to stay at the same level.”
Hong-Chih Kuo pitched a scoreless inning while Jonathan Broxton played the second half of the inning as a closer and provided one home-run to Pat Burrell in the ninth inning.
Loney's RBI double gave an additional run to the Dodgers in the 8th inning against Santiago Casilla after Kemp’s stolen runs. The National League draftee of 2010, Posey, wanted to stop the score of Kemp but the throw went wide of Pablo Sandoval
and Kemp completed the single.
Speaking to the media Posey said, “I just thought, especially with the ball in the dirt, I might have had a chance of catching him there with head down. I wouldn't have thrown it if I didn't think he was [too far off the bag]. It was an instinctual play,
and I just didn't execute it.”
Tim Lincecum won the Cy Young Award two times in his career but yesterday he struck-out only five hitters in his third successive start of opening day. The Giants’ starter Lincecum offered just one unearned run with five hits in seven innings. He was in
charge throughout the initial innings, but his cover went down in the sixth inning, while Juan Uribe stole a base.
On the other hand, the Giants faced trouble in their roster with respect to fielding and pitching. The Giants made four singles out of five hits, counting a shot played by Brandon Belt in his debut game of the Major Leagues.
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