SAN DIEGO — Clayton Kershaw had made 423 regular-season starts and recorded at least one strikeout in every one of them, a stretch that began with his introduction to the major leagues, extended through his run as the sport’s most dominant pitcher and persisted amid continual injury.
On Wednesday night, during his second start back from his first arm surgery, Kershaw’s run finally ended.
In a matchup against the San Diego Padres, the team with the highest contact rate in the major leagues, Kershaw recorded 11 outs, allowed seven runs and struck out zero batters, handing his shorthanded Los Angeles Dodgers an 8-1 loss from Petco Park.
“There’s a lot of things I was missing,” Kershaw said. “Just wasn’t executing, wasn’t throwing really anything where I wanted to, how I wanted to. Frustrating, overall.”
Dating back to 1893, the year the pitcher’s mound was moved to its current location, no man had ever made more regular-season starts with at least one strikeout than Kershaw, according to research from ESPN Stats & Information. The two just below him — Tom Seaver at 411, Nolan Ryan at 382 — are legends. Kershaw’s only other regular-season game without a strikeout was Sept. 28, 2008, against the Giants, but that was in a relief appearance.
That Kershaw’s streak lasted so long is a testament to his excellence. That it ended, perhaps, is indicative of his current state, coming off shoulder surgery and pitching in his age-36 season.
The Padres, winners of nine of 11 since the All-Star break, scored four runs in the second inning and three more in the fourth. Only three of the runs charged to Kershaw were earned. But some of that stemmed from a rare misplay by Kershaw himself, when he mishandled a one-out bunt that could have resulted in an easy out at home. The Padres took 41 swings against Kershaw and whiffed only twice — a 4.9 percent swing-and-miss rate that stands as the lowest of any Kershaw start, playoffs included.
“Physically, I feel fine,” Kershaw said. “Honestly I felt pretty good with the last one overall. But this one, obviously, was really bad.”
Kershaw threw a fastball that hovered around 90 mph, which is not abnormal for him at this stage, and a slider that, according to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, lacked bite. Roberts pointed to what in the grand scheme seemed like an insignificant sequence, when Jurickson Profar drove a second-inning RBI single into right-center field by elevating a slider well below the strike zone.
“You don’t see them getting under the slider and really elevating it like they were tonight,” Roberts said. “It kinda speaks to the teeth of the slider tonight.”
The Dodgers lost back-to-back games against the Padres but are also far from whole. Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, two of their three best hitters, are not with the team. Chris Taylor and Miguel Rojas are on the injured list. Their three position-player additions before the trade deadline — Tommy Edman, Amed Rosario and Kevin Kiermaier — have yet to be inserted into the lineup. The Padres, through, have beaten them seven out of 10 times for the first time since the two teams have been matching up in the regular season. The Dodgers still hold a 5 1/2 game lead in the National League West, but they finished July with an 11-13 record.
“We’ll come out of it,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “No doubt about it. We’re the Dodgers. We’re the best team in baseball.”
To ultimately be deemed the best, a distinction reserved for champions, the Dodgers need a rotation that can carry them through October. The addition of Jack Flaherty, who can form a strong one-two punch with Tyler Glasnow, will certainly help. But the Dodgers face uncertainty beyond them. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is working his way back from what has been diagnosed as a strained rotator cuff and has yet to get off the mound; Walker Buehler struggled mightily coming off his second Tommy John surgery and is still working his way back from a hip injury; and Bobby Miller was hit around in his return from a shoulder injury, prompting an assignment to the minor leagues.
If the quality of Kershaw’s stuff is evidenced by the lack of swing-and-miss he generated Wednesday, there’s concern there, too.
“I just need to pitch better,” Kershaw said. “Sometimes it happens. There’s a lot you can over-analyze when you pitch bad. But for right now I’m just gonna say it was bad and try to pitch better the next one.”
