Moments after their team’s exciting 11-inning 7-6 walk-off win over the Boston Red Sox in front of a Dodger Stadium crowd of 48,129 on Friday evening, Dodger fans received the best news of the season:
The news comes one day after Kershaw completed his third rehab start following his November 3, 2023 surgery to repair the gleno-humeral ligaments and capsule in his left shoulder. That start was with the team’s Triple-A affiliate Oklahoma City Baseball Club, in which the 36-year-old Dallas, TX native and future first-ballot Hall of Famer allowed three runs on six hits, with two strikeouts and no walks in his 4.0 innings pitched against the Texas Rangers Triple-A affiliate Round Rock Express. Among those six hits was a solo home run in his final inning of work. He made 67 total pitches, of which 49 were strikes. Of the 26 four-seam fastballs he threw, he topped out at 91.7 mph, with an average speed of 89.7 mph.
(OKC Baseball Club)
As for that exciting 11-inning 7-6 walk-off win thing, it never would have happened were it not for a clutch bottom-of-the-ninth-inning lead off home run by Dodgers pinch hitter Kiké Hernández off of former Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen to turn a then 4-3 deficit into a 4-4 tie.
(Fox Sports)
Although Boston would score two more in the top of the 10th, the Dodgers countered with two of their own on a double to left field by center fielder Andy Pages to score placed runner Freddie Freeman, followed by an RBI single to center by (wait for it…) Kiké Hernández.
The Dodgers then walked it off in the bottom of the 11th after a sacrifice bunt by pinch hitter Cavan Biggio to advance Dodgers placed runner (wait for it…) Kiké Hernández to third base. Dodgers second baseman Chris Taylor then drew a huge five-pitch walk off of Red Sox right-hander Greg Weissert.
And then, for the second day in a row, Red Sox manager (and former Dodger) Alex Cora elected to intentionally walk the bases loaded, this time of Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani, to set up a force-at-home situation and/or a potential inning-ending double play, and for the second day in a row, it did not work, as Dodgers catcher Will Smith hit Weissert’s third pitch, a 93-mph sinker, to left, driving in (wait for it…) Kiké Hernández for the walk-off win.
“It was back and forth all game, you know. That’s a good team over there,” Smith told Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal postgame. “They never gave up, we never gave up. It was a fun one to come out on top of.”
The NL West first-place Dodgers will go for a three-game sweep of the AL East third-place Red Sox on Sunday afternoon, with 35-year-old left-hander James Paxton on the hill for the Dodgers.
Play Ball!
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