Happy Birthday Dad!

I was going to wait until after the Dodgers-Mets series and just do one blog post on the two games I'm going to, but Clayton Kershaw's performance deserved its own.  Last year, the Dodgers were 0-3 with me in attendance (in Los Angeles, New York, and Detroit).  Not surprisingly, I didn't see Clayton Kershaw pitch.  This was the first Dodger game I went to this year.  With the Dodgers in town for four, that meant there was a good chance of Kershaw pitching, except for the way the schedule worked out.  The first game of the series with the Mets was their seventh game after the All Star Break (with no days off).  If Kershaw pitched the first game after the break, he would have pitched the sixth game and then missed the entire series against the Mets.  And that's what the original plan was.  Then Mattingly decided to give Kershaw one extra day of rest after the All Star Game and he was on track to pitch the first game against the Mets, which happened to be my dad's birthday.  As soon as I was reasonably sure Kershaw would be pitching, I bought tickets on Stubhub.

This was the sixth time I've seen Kershaw pitch in person.  The last time was in Philadelphia in August 2013, which is also the last Dodger win I saw in person.  Check out that link for Kershaw's numbers with me in attendance after that game (I'll update them in this post).

We had a really rough drive into the stadium.  We left at 5:05 and didn't get there until about 6:45.  So there was no time for walking around the stadium or anything, but we were in our seats before the first pitch.  I had time to run and get food for my dad and myself before the game started.  I found a concession stand with no line.  I only had a hot dog since it was National Hot Dog Day.  Speaking of hot dogs, Dave Dameshek (who hosts a great NFL podcast) says that hot dogs are sandwiches and that it's okay to put ketchup on hot dogs.  I vehemently disagree on both counts.  The notion that a hot dog is a sandwich is silly, but he's been saying that we have the right to put ketchup on hot dogs.  And I do agree with that, this is America.  But come on, ketchup on a hot dog?  What is this, amateur hour?  And no yellow mustard either.  As Cosmo Kramer pointed out, that's bush league.  Put some spicy mustard on your hot dog and enjoy.

The Mets had Bartolo Colon on the mound.  Their lineup was horrendous.  Juan Legares was hitting .256 going into the game and nobody in the lineup had a higher average than that.  John Mayberry Jr. (.165/.229/.321 after this game) and Eric Campbell (.176/.299/.277) were their 4 and 5 hitters.  Yikes.  Believe me, the thought of a no-hitter did occur to me before the game even started.  And then the game started.  And Kershaw kept getting guys out.

Our view last night

After the second, I went to get a beer.  I had a Montauk Summer Ale since it appeared that they didn't have any Sam Adams.  It was fine, but nothing special.  I've come to the conclusion that very few breweries do summer beers particularly well.  I feel like you can find lots of good Oktoberfests, but if you want a good summer beer, you have to go with Sam Adams Summer Ale.  I missed one batter and was back in time to see Jimmy Rollins bat.  After spending most of his career with the Phillies, he got a pretty negative reaction from the Met fans.  And then he hit a 420-foot home run to right center to put the Dodgers up 1-0.

Kershaw kept getting guys out and so did Colon.  Through either five or six (I think six), neither team left anybody on base.  The Dodgers got three guys on and hit into three double plays.  I've said that after five, it's appropriate to start getting excited about the possibility of a no-hitter.  You're more than halfway there.  But with Kershaw, I say after three.  In the fifth inning, Kershaw struck out Eric Campbell on a curveball that got away from Yazmani Grandal.  Grandal made a nice play to get the ball and get the out at first.  It was a close play and the Mets thought about challenging it, but the call was right.  Kershaw was perfect through six.  I was definitely thinking about how awesome it would be.  It would be his second no-hitter.  Sandy Koufax threw no-hitters four years in a row.  This would put Kershaw halfway to that mark.  The only conceivable negative would be that Vin Scully wasn't calling it.

Curtis Granderson led off the seventh.  Kershaw got two strikes on him (I was starting to count the strikes he needed to strike every batter out for the rest of the game).  But then Granderson hit a solid single to right field.  On the one replay I saw at the stadium, it looked like a pretty good pitch that was down and out of the zone.  Oh well, he made it interesting.  But now it was suddenly a game since the Dodgers still only had one run.  Wilmer Flores (who killed the Dodgers in Los Angeles earlier this year) singled with one out.  Kershaw got a strikeout and a ground out to get out of his only jam of the game.  In the eighth, Lucas Duda had a lead off single and then Kershaw proceded to pick him off.  And that was all the baserunners he allowed.

Bartolo Colon went eight and only allowed the one run.  He was replaced by Sean Gilmartin in the ninth.  He gave up three straight singles to load the bases without recording an out.  Then Don Mattingly made a move that I disagreed with pretty strongly (and I think a lot of Dodger fans criticize him unfairly).  Andre Ethier was due up.  With a lefty on the mound, he sent up Alex Guerrero to pinch hit.  That only encouraged Terry Collins to take out Gilmartin, who hadn't gotten an out.  He brought in Carlos Torres, a righty.  So then Mattingly pinch hit for Guerrero with Alberto Callaspo, a switch hitter.  It ended up working out just fine as Torres walked Callaspo on four pitches.  But in that situation, you took out one of your best hitters lately for one of your worst hitters lately and encouraged the Mets to make a pitching change.  Let Ethier hit against the guy who hasn't gotten anybody out or the Mets might take him out anyway since he hasn't gotten anybody out and then you have Ethier facing a righty.  I know, I'm criticizing Mattingly for a move that worked out, but sometimes in baseball you do the right thing and it doesn't work or you do the wrong thing and it does work.  Yasiel Puig tacked on another run with a sacrifice fly.

In the bottom of the ninth Clayton Kershaw easily got two ground outs and a strikeout to finish the shutout.  In his two previous starts, he was the first pitcher in at least 100 years to allow no runs and no walks with 10 strikeouts in both starts.  And now he's done it three games in a row.  He also has a scoreless innings streak of 29 now.  He's amazing.  What was also important about Kershaw's performance was that the Dodgers didn't have a starting pitcher for the next three games.  Resting the bullpen was pretty important.  Zack Greinke was supposed to pitch tonight, but his wife had a baby yesterday.  Brandon Beachy's spot in the rotation would be Saturday's starter, but he got sent down to the minors.  And Brett Anderson got hurt in his last start.  So some guy named Ian Thomas is pitching tonight.  Greinke and Anderson could still pitch this weekend, but we'll see.

Kershaw got off to a rough start this season, but since the end of May, he's been as good as ever.  His ERA is almost twice as high as Zack Greinke (who has been absolutely ridiculous).  The Cy Young is Greinke's to win, but if he stumbles, do not count out Kershaw.  That would have seemed crazy on May 21 when his ERA was 4.32.  Looking at the numbers now, he's right in the mix now with Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Jake Arrieta, Francisco Liriano, and Gerrit Cole after Zack Greinke.

I've now seen Kershaw in person six times:  New York in 2009, Washington in 2010, Los Angeles in 2013 (against the Giants), New York in 2013, Philadelphia in 2013, and New York in 2015.  His numbers in those six games:  43 innings, 4-0 (the Dodgers are 6-0), 44 strikeouts, 0.84 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, 2 complete game shutouts, and 1 home run as a batter.  He's good.