Dodgers Rumors: Three Takeaways from Dodgers Opening Day 2017
By Evan Lovett
Kershaw is Kershaw
My goodness. There are not enough superlatives to describe Clayton Kershaw during the regular season.
Never seriously threatened, Kershaw breezed through seven innings. He needed only 84 pitches to strike out eight Padres, allowing only two hits while walking zero. Though Ryan Schimpf drove a solo home run against Kershaw in the seventh, he dominated the first six frames, driving his Opening Day record to 5-0 with a 0.99 ERA in seven starts.
The game would mark Kershaw’s seventh consecutive Opening Day start for Los Angeles, tying him with Don Sutton and Don Drysdale for most ever with the club. For Kershaw, 61 of his 84 pitches were strikes and five of the strikeouts were looking. Besides Schimpf, there was not a hard hit ball all day against the peerless lefty.
It is worth emphasizing that this Padres lineup features only three players with significant Major League experience and is expected to be one of the worst in the league. But Kershaw, after retooling his offseason training program and avoiding surgery on his back, came into this year as much of a question mark as is possible from the Best Pitcher on the Planet.
He answered the questions, leaving only one more as he strolled into the clubhouse after yet another Opening Day win – can this season be his best ever? From the looks of things, he is on the way.