LOS ANGELES — The sight of Clayton Kershaw on the mound at Dodger Stadium again Saturday night brought back memories of 17 seasons’ worth of highlights.
His pitching did not evoke as many feel-good emotions.
Kershaw’s return for his 18th season was rough to watch. He gave up three runs in the first inning and five in four innings. That did not make him the least effective pitcher on a seesaw night that saw both teams blow leads. Logan O’Hoppe’s three-run home run in a five-run seventh inning finally put the Angels on top to stay and they held on to beat the Dodgers 11-9.
“I mean, we’re here to win,” O’Hoppe said of the Angels guaranteeing their first series win over the Dodgers since 2021. “It does feel good when you’re in an environment like this, and things are a little bit more emotional when you do come out with a win like that. But we don’t want to be surprised or any higher on a win than we are normally.”
The Dodgers’ second consecutive loss to the Angels (and fourth in their past five meetings) included yet another pitching injury for both teams. Relievers Kirby Yates (Dodgers) and Hector Neris (Angels) each left in mid-inning with apparent injuries.
It was such a rough night to be a pitcher that Anthony Banda came trotting in from the bullpen after Yates left with his injury in the seventh inning, but was sent, the call having actually gone out for Luis Garcia.
Long before that, when Kershaw took the mound and warmed up to the familiar lines of “We Are Young,” there was still time to hope he would turn back the clock and pitch as if he were again. When he struck out the first batter he faced – career strikeout No. 2,969 – there was a reminder of how much the future Hall of Famer has accomplished.
“I love getting back out there,” Kershaw said. “It’s a special thing to get to go back and pitch at Dodger Stadium. Obviously, I wanted to pitch better. Need to pitch better going forward.”
It went downhill quickly after that first strikeout. The next four batters reached base before Kershaw retired another batter, Luis Rengifo, on a 348-foot fly ball caught by Michael Conforto with his back to the left-field wall.
Kershaw faced eight batters in his first inning since last August 30 and needed 38 pitches to record three outs. The Angels scored three runs in the inning on a two-run single by O’Hoppe and an RBI double by Matthew Lugo.
“I think there’s some glimpses of some of my stuff being there, which is good. The problem tonight was just command. I had really bad command tonight,” Kershaw said. “I think I can fix that, which is good, which is an encouraging thing, but obviously not good enough tonight to get it done.”
The Dodgers made all of that go away in the bottom of the first on a three-run home run by Andy Pages.
Pages did Kershaw another solid in the fourth inning when he made an outstanding catch of Zach Neto’s drive into the right field corner, crashing into the wall as he did so.
Kershaw allowed eight baserunners in his four innings (five hits and three walks). He threw 83 pitches and did get an encouraging 10 swings-and-misses, all on his breaking pitches (six on the slider, four on the curveball). His fastball velocity was in the upper 80s during his minor-league rehab starts and didn’t improve much in the big-league environment – he averaged 89.2 mph on 23 four-seam fastballs, touching 91 (90.9) mph once in the first inning to Jorge Soler.
“I think the stuff overall I was impressed with,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I thought at times the slider was good. There was some swing-and-miss early. At times, the curveball was good. He mixed in a lot of changeups which was good. I think tonight the command just wasn’t consistent. He got to a lot of two-strike counts and couldn’t put hitters away, where typically that’s his hallmark – when he gets count leverage, he can get a strikeout. Tonight he just couldn’t put guys away.”
Angels starter Tyler Anderson wasn’t much more effective. He gave up the first-inning homer to Pages and a solo homer to Kike’ Hernandez in the fourth, nearly squandering the lead the Angels offense built for him.
The Angels’ bullpen did squander it.
Neris walked the first two batters he faced in the sixth, gave up a game-tying double to Dalton Rushing and wild-pitched the go-ahead run home before leaving in mid-at-bat against Miguel Rojas with a blister issue.
Rojas beat out an infield single on a ground ball off the glove of third baseman Kevin Newman. Another run scored when Shohei Ohtani grounded into a double play, giving the Dodgers a two-run lead, 7-5.
That disappeared in the five-run seventh inning. Nolan Schanuel doubled in a run off of Dodgers reliever Ben Casparius. Yates replaced Casparius with one out and gave up three consecutive hits, including O’Hoppe’s go-ahead home run, before leaving with hamstring tightness. He is likely headed to the Injured List.
“In the past, he had thrown a couple splits to me, and then I started to slow down and not sit on it, but just anticipate that it was coming, and then he would get me looking with a heater,” O’Hoppe said of his at-bat against Yates. “So I knew the split was coming once he got ahead, but I really wanted to stay on the heater. I didn’t want to get beat with a heater there.”
The Dodgers closed the gap again with single runs in the seventh and eighth before Kenley Jansen came in for a four-out save. It was the 455th save of his career (fourth all-time), the 187th at Dodger Stadium – and the third against the Dodgers (he had two for the Braves in 2022).
“It’s definitely emotional every time I step on that mound. The majority of my career is there, so I enjoy being on that mound again,” Jansen said. “I try to treat it the same, like any team I’m facing, so just go out there and compete and try to help the team win ball games.”