They’ve performed 18 respective big-league seasons. They’ve mixed for practically 6,500 strikeouts and 435 profession wins. They every have two World Sequence titles, and three Cy Younger Awards. And in the future, they’ll share immortal plaques in Cooperstown, future first-ballot Corridor of Famers who outlined their technology of pitchers.
For Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer, there’s nothing left to show.
That doesn’t imply, nevertheless, that there’s nothing left to play for.
On Friday evening at Dodger Stadium, in a pitcher’s duel that noticed each veteran aces flip in classic performances, two gamers who’ve meant a lot to the game’s previous discovered themselves within the middle of its current.
They have been each pitching for first-place groups. They have been each efficient regardless of their diminished stuff. They have been each wrapped up in what felt like a pivotal recreation initially of every group’s late-season push.
“I think it’s going to be kind of quiet intensity from both of them,” Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned earlier than the sport. “I think that they both are obviously great competitors.”
And within the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over Scherzer and the Toronto Blue Jays, it was Kershaw who proved to be a fraction higher.
Over his six innings, the 37-year-old left-hander navigated site visitors and restricted harm, giving up seven hits and one stroll, however just one run, due to 4 well-timed strikeouts and three essential double-plays turned behind him.
The 41-year-old Scherzer, in the meantime, noticed what had been a scoreless evening shattered within the span of two swings within the fifth, with Shohei Ohtani hitting a two-out double earlier than Mookie Betts belted a go-ahead, two-run homer.
The Dodgers (67-49) finally pulled away late, scoring thrice in opposition to the Blue Jays’ bullpen within the seventh.
However up till then, the evening’s two beginning pitchers have been hardly separable.
“I don’t know,” Roberts mentioned, “if you’re gonna see this one again.”
Toronto Blue Jays beginning pitcher Max Scherzer delivers in the course of the second inning Friday.
(Kevork Djansezian / Getty Pictures)
Early on, Scherzer gave the impression to be the one on the ropes. Within the first, the Dodgers loaded the bases in opposition to him on two singles and a stroll. Scherzer gave the impression to be battling his command, lacking the zone on seven of 14 pitches at one level. And the aspect was solely retired after Teoscar Hernández missed a few fastballs left over the guts of the plate, earlier than finally putting out on a slider within the dust.
Kershaw, by comparability, wanted solely 11 pitches in a clear opening inning.
From there, nevertheless, the tables began to show.
Kershaw rapidly bumped into bother within the second. Bo Bichette hit a squibber previous Freddie Freeman for a leadoff double. The Blue Jays (68-49) opened the scoring on Addison Barger’s RBI single off a dangling two-strike curveball. Two extra base hits from Ty France and Daulton Varsho loaded the bases. Kershaw escaped the jam, however solely with the assistance of a diving play by Betts at shortstop, who snared a line drive from Myles Straw earlier than doubling off France at second for an inning-ending double-play.
Kershaw encountered extra site visitors within the third (working round a Davis Schneider leadoff single), the fourth (when Barger’s one-out hit was erased by a France double-play grounder), the fifth (when second baseman Alex Freeland helped strand a runner with a sprinting catch in shallow proper area) and the sixth (when a leadoff stroll to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was canceled out by yet one more double-play grounder).
Mookie Betts hits a two-run residence run for the Dodgers within the fifth inning Friday.
(Kevork Djansezian / Getty Pictures)
However after getting by means of every new menace unscathed, he ended his 74-pitch evening with a 3.14 season earned-run common — the bottom it has been since late June.
Scherzer, in the meantime, bounced again from his shaky first inning by discovering a midgame groove. Beginning along with his strikeout of Hernández, he retired 9 consecutive batters. And even after Andy Pages led off the fifth with a single, it appeared Scherzer had caught a break, with Pages getting doubled-off at first base on a Freeland pop-up after getting again to the bag late following an tried steal of second.
5 pitches later, although, Scherzer hung a 2-and-2 slider that Ohtani drove to proper area for a ground-rule double. Then Betts got here to the plate and continued his current — and long-awaited — turnaround offensively, ambushing a first-pitch slider for his first residence run since July 5.
Since a career-worst 0-for-22 skid ended Tuesday, Betts is six-for-his-last-11 with three extra-base hits and, simply as encouragingly, one stroll to zero strikeouts.
