Losing Clayton Kershaw starts still really stinks. Tonight wasn’t really any different, but the results (a 6-1 loss) were not really his fault.
Kershaw’s pitching looked … fine, mostly. He looked almost exactly like he looked in the middle of last season. After much concern about his fastball velocity in his first outing, he was consistently between 91 and 93 today with reasonably good command of the pitch tonight. His curveball was extremely good, and his slider was flat and looked more like a cutter, which resulted in some difficulty putting batters away. He still seemed to be dealing with a follow-through issue, as he slipped a few times while finishing his pitches.