A game that began with a promising start from Clayton Kershaw took a sharp downward turn in the sixth inning Tuesday night, the Dodgers losing reliever Brusdar Graterol to a right-hamstring strain just eight pitches into his 2024 debut and the Philadelphia Phillies rallying for three runs in an eventual 6-2 victory.
A crowd of 47,150 in Chavez Ravine saw the National League East-leading Phillies win for only the third time in 12 games, while the Dodgers had their three-game win streak snapped and their NL West lead over San Diego reduced to four games.
Kershaw, in his third start back from November shoulder surgery, gave up one earned run and five hits in 4 ⅔ innings, striking out five and walking none, the Phillies scoring their only run off the 36-year-old left-hander on Kyle Schwarber’s fifth-inning RBI single.
Graterol, who missed the first four months of the season because of a shoulder injury, took the mound to start the sixth with a 1-0 deficit and got Bryce Harper to pop out to third before giving up a single to Alec Bohm.
But as he delivered a 2-and-1 sinker to J.T. Realmuto, Graterol clutched his right hamstring and crumpled on the front of the mound in pain. Graterol had to be helped off the field, his teammates consoling the distraught reliever as he reached the dugout.
Brent Honeywell replaced Graterol and completed a walk to Realmuto before giving up an RBI single to Nick Castellanos, a one-out walk to Brandon Marsh and a two-out, two-run single to Edmundo Sosa for a 4-0 Philadelphia lead.
The Dodgers cut the deficit to 4-1 in the bottom of the sixth when Teoscar Hernández doubled and scored on Will Smith’s groundout. They put two on with one out in the seventh, but Phillies All-Star left-hander Matt Strahm struck out pinch-hitter Austin Barnes and got Shohei Ohtani to fly out to right.
Hernández 25th homer of the season, a 424-foot shot to center off right-hander Jeff Hoffman in the eight, pulled the Dodgers to within 4-2, but Sosa and Schwarber hit back-to-back solo homers off Honeywell in the ninth for a 6-2 lead.
Kershaw had a solid 2024 debut against San Francisco on July 25, giving up two runs and six hits, striking out six and walking two in four innings of a 6-4 win, but he regressed badly in his second start at San Diego on July 31, giving up seven runs–three earned–and six hits in 3 ⅓ innings of an 8-1 loss.
Kershaw failed to record a strikeout for the first time in his 424 regular-season starts over 17 years. He averaged less than 90 mph on his fastball, a drop from his season debut, and induced only two swinging strikes on the 41 pitches the Padres swung at.
“The first one, I thought, was really good, the stuff was crisp, sharp,” manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “The second one, not as crisp across the board.”
The third one — against one of baseball’s best lineups — erased the sour taste of the second one from Kershaw’s mouth and was much better than the first, Kershaw facing the minimum nine batters through three innings and yielding only a broken-bat single to Austin Hays, who was thrown out at second base to end the third.
Kershaw gave up one-out singles to Trea Turner and Harper to put runners on first and third in the fourth, but he escaped the jam by striking out Bohm with a 74-mph curve in the dirt and getting Realmuto to ground out to third.
The Phillies created more traffic in the fifth when Hays doubled to left with one out and Marsh was hit by a pitch. Kershaw won a nine-pitch duel with Sosa, striking out the second baseman with an 83-mph split-changeup.
But Schwarber, who struck out in his first two at-bats, lofted a full-count slider that dropped in front of center fielder Kevin Kiermaier for an RBI single and a 1-0 Phillies lead. Right-hander Joe Kelly replaced Kershaw and got Turner to fly out to center.
Kershaw threw 81 pitches, 55 for strikes, and he induced 10 swinging strikes. His four-seam fastball averaged 90.4 mph, and he did a better job of mixing his 86.2-mph sliders and 73.1-mph curves.
“As a competitor you want to be great, you want to be perfect, every time out, but I just don’t think that’s a realistic expectation,” Roberts said. “Let’s just try to build on the positives from each outing, and keep on building.”
Short hops
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, out since June 16 because of a rotator-cuff strain, threw a 30-pitch bullpen session on Tuesday. The right-hander will travel with the team and throw to hitters in Milwaukee next week, “and hopefully, if that goes well, we’ll keep building from there.” Roberts said the Dodgers remain “hopeful” that Yamamoto, who went 6-2 with a 2.92 ERA in 14 starts, will return in September.
