Remember last season when it seemed like Clayton Kershaw could never earn a win?
He's taking matters into his own hands this time around.
For the third straight start, Kershaw was simply brilliant, limiting the Padres to one run over 7 1/3 innings. A three-run sixth helped break a 1-1 tie, and the Dodgers took this one over the Pads, 4-1. Both teams split a game in this brief series, meaning the Dodgers have won four of five from them this year.
There wasn't a whole lot going on early in the game, thanks to the efforts of Kershaw and Kevin Correia. The Dodgers got on the board first in the second. Casey Blake led off with a single, and Blake DeWitt hit a double with one out. A sac-fly RBI by Jamey Carroll later, and it was 1-0.
Kershaw got into a bit of trouble in the third, where the Padres tied the game. Everth Cabrera doubled to right, as he took advantage of his fast speed on a slow blooper. Corriea sacrificed him over to third, and Will Venable hit one through the middle of the drawn in infield.
The Padres actually had two runners on with less than two outs in both the fourth and fifth, but came up empty. That would eventually come back to haunt them.
The sixth is when the Dodgers busted out some runs. Matt Kemp and James Loney singled to start for runners on the corners. Blake struck out, but Garret Anderson hit a sac-fly RBI to make it 2-1.
DeWitt was given the intentional walk to get to Carroll. That proved to be a bad move, as Carroll's RBI singled scored Loney and made it 3-1. A wild pitch from Correia scored DeWitt, and the Dodgers had a 4-1 lead.
Kershaw was eventually lifted in the eighth with one down after Adrian Gonzalez's single. Ronald Belisario got two strikeouts to end the frame. Jonathan Broxton gave up a single to start, but got the next three hitters for his eighth save.
While Kershaw deserves a ton of praise, another person who has quietly come through night in and night out is Carroll. The only reason he's playing all the time is because Rafael Furcal is slow to comeback from injury. But a 2-for-3 night raised Carroll average to .290, including .328 in May. Plus, he has a good glove at short.
Back to Kershaw, and he's now given up two runs in his last 22 1/3 innings. After getting bombed on May 4 (thankfully a distant memory at this point), his ERA has gone from 4.99 to 3.23. When he's on like he is right now, he's practically unhittable.
The Padres are still a really good team at this point, so the Dodgers deserve plenty of credit for playing so well against them. Even without Manny Ramirez, Andre Ethier, and Furcal, the team still finds a way to win. That's how they won so many games last year, and they're doing it again.
Interleague play opens up on Friday night as the Dodgers welcome the Tigers. Chad Billingsley was awesome in last start against the Padres, and he'll go tonight against Dontrelle Willis. Remember him? Seems like forever ago that he was baseball's newest star. Now his ERAs the last three seasons have been 9.38, 7.49, and 4.68. So much for that.
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