Kuzul

The Los Angeles Dodgers have arguably the two best starting pitchers in the National League. After that, they have a lot of troubling questions.

Here’s the biggest one: Is this team good enough to call itself a legitimate contender?

The answer seems like an obvious “yes,” considering the Dodgers entered play Sunday in first place in the National League West at 67-55.

Lately, though, Los Angeles has looked anything but dominant.

After a dispiriting 3-2 extra-innings loss to the Houston Astros on Sunday, the Dodgers have now lost five straight.

The bullpen, which sports the third-worst ERA in the National League, deserves a healthy dollop of blame. But there are other reasons to fret.

Like, say, the fact that Los Angeles has scored the fewest runs of any team in its division since the All-Star break and, indeed, fewer runs than every NL club except the Atlanta Braves.

No player embodies the Dodgers’ second-half struggles better than Joc Pederson. A homer-crushing NL Rookie of the Year contender in the early going, Pederson has hit just .163 with an anemic .293 slugging percentage since appearing in his first Midsummer Classic.

Add veteran shortstop Jimmy Rollins, who hit leadoff Sunday despite a .223 average and .275 OBP, and you have a pair of black holes in the lineup.

Yes, Zack Greinke is compiling a strong Cy Young Award case, and Clayton Kershaw has returned to vintage form after some initial hiccups.

That might be enough to propel the Dodgers to the postseason. The San Francisco Giants—who sit one game back in the West, pending the outcome of Sunday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates—have been treading water through an arduous August schedule. And the Giants have pressing questions of their own, including a wobbly back end of the rotation and injuries to key offensive cogs Hunter Pence (oblique) and Joe Panik (back).

The two teams will meet for three games beginning Aug. 31 and for a four-game set in late September. Those head-to-head matchups may decide which of these storied rivals plays on into October, especially with the Chicago Cubs holding a healthy edge for the second wild-card spot.

That’s the harsh reality for Los Angeles. Yes, if the season ended today, the Dodgers would be off to the division series as the NL West champs. But if the Giants—or, more improbably, the lurking Arizona Diamondbacks—pass them up, they could miss the postseason entirely.

That would count as a massive letdown for baseball’s biggest spenders, who have won two straight division crowns and advanced to the National League Championship Series in 2013.

Along with the Washington Nationals in the NL East, the Dodgers entered 2015 looking like one of the few sure bets in baseball. Now, like the Nats, their season is teetering on the brink.

Is it time to mash the panic button in Southern California? Yes, according to Kershaw, per ESPN.com’s Mark Saxon:

I hope we’re panicking a little bit. I think panic’s a good thing to a certain extent. It’s August whatever-it-is, and we’ve got five weeks or whatever it is, too. There needs to be a sense of urgency. Maybe that’s better to say it than panic, but I feel like we’ve got to start playing like that.

Obviously, that’s the reigning NL MVP trying to fire up the troops, and good for him. Somebody has to do it—why not the man with the bulging trophy case and deadly left arm?

As Saxon spelled out, beyond the numbers, Los Angeles has looked mediocre, bordering on lackadaisical:

The Dodgers continued their plodding ways, waiting for home runs that never arrive. They did add a dose of aggression, focus and effort to their base running when they traded for Chase Utley. He scored one of the Dodgers’ only runs [Sunday], legging out a double, advancing on a wild pitch and scoring on a sacrifice fly. Sometimes, it feels like the Dodgers go a month without manufacturing a run.

Some of the blame must fall on manager Don Mattingly. And, indeed, Bleacher Report’s Karl Buscheck recently named Donnie Ballgame one of the MLB skippers whose posteriors could soon be in the hot seat.

A manager, however, can only work with the talent he has. And right now, despite a payroll that hovers around $300 million, the Dodgers’ talent isn’t producing.

“Every team goes through stretches where they’re just not hitting, not pitching,” Rollins said after Saturday’s defeat, per Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times.

Here’s something else Rollins told Hernandez: “The season’s not over.”

That’s true, and the Dodgers should be glad it isn’t. Because, while they’d slip into the postseason if the season did end Sunday, they wouldn’t last long playing like this.

All statistics and standings current as of Aug. 23 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers are acquiring a second aging former Philadelphia Phillies superstar, and, like the first, the move has the potential to be an upgrade.

The Dodgers pulled off the biggest waiver deadline trade this year in getting second baseman Chase Utley from Philadelphia, a move made to absorb incumbent second baseman Howie Kendrick’s current hamstring injury, which has him on the disabled list.

Plenty of clubs had August interest in Utley, per Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, but a pair of “mid-level” minor league prospects got it done for the Dodgers, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.

With the way Utley has hit since returning from an ankle injury, this move could be a massive boost for the Dodgers lineup, which remains inconsistent against even mediocre pitching. It proved just that in being swept by the Oakland A’s this week.

The Utley deal, while potentially impactful, does not address the Dodgers’ more serious and immediate need for a reliable bullpen arm. The team’s lack of a solid wing out of the pen was highlighted in the two-game Oakland series. These were possibly two of the Dodgers’ ugliest losses this year, considering the point in the season, the state of the National League West and the fact that L.A. held leads in both games.

ESPN.com’s Mark Saxon reported Wednesday afternoon that “the Dodgers will receive $4 million from Philadelphia to offset the $6 million remaining on Utley’s $15 million salary.” This would set Utley up to become a free agent after the season.

Acquiring Utley can certainly help L.A. Kendrick is expected to be out until early September, per Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times, and Utley has been hot since returning from the disabled list, batting .484 (15-for-31) with five doubles and a home run in eight games. Before missing 37 games with the ankle issues, Utley had hit .179/.257/.275 in 249 plate appearances. He had started the year 9-for-91.

If Utley brings his latest brand of production to the Dodgers, it will be a big help to a lineup that scored eight runs in its last three games, against starters Anthony DeSclafani, Felix Doubront and Jesse Chavez. In the way Marco Scutaro caught fire after being traded to the San Francisco Giants in 2012, Utley can be that kind of small-sample boost to the Dodgers as he plays second and probably some third and first base.

“His bat speed is very good,” Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. told 94WIP in Philadelphia on Tuesday. “You can see his legs are underneath him, and it seems pretty clear that there was something going on in his ankle that was limiting him in some way, shape or form. He looks like he’s pretty much a man on a mission.”

Amaro also noted that it was “very likely” Chase Utley would remain in Philadelphia through the end of the year, which obviously wasn’t true. The first comment wasn’t false, though: Utley is hitting the ball harder now than he has all season. Daren Willman of MLBFarm.com tweeted as much:

Utley fills a hole in the lineup, but he does not improve the Dodgers bullpen, which has nearly been the worst in the league since the All-Star break. Like Utley, the group is also producing some hitter-friendly exit velocities of late, as the bullpen went into Wednesday with a hard-hit rate of nearly 30 percent and a soft-hit rate of 17.5 percent, the fifth-worst in the league since the break, according to FanGraphs. 

This has been a problem for the Dodgers all season, as it seems like the only thing the bullpen is great at is strikeouts—its 26.4 percent strikeout rate leads the league—but it also strands only 71 percent of runners, the second-worst mark in the NL. 

In the two games in Oakland, the bullpen allowed six runs in 4.1 innings. Jim Johnson, the arm acquired from the Atlanta Braves at the non-waiver deadline to be the bridge to closer Kenley Jansen, has allowed 14 earned runs in six innings (eight appearances), making the unit significantly worse and more unreliable than it was before his arrival.

“Obviously we’re going to have to find ways to get the ball from our starters to Kenley,” manager Don Mattingly told reporters Tuesday. “We’ve got guys who can do that, and I trust that we’re going to do that.”

Trust is hardly evident, as Mattingly, just like last season, has had to stick with his starters too long into games. (Think back to the elimination game in last year’s playoffs, with Clayton Kershaw against the St. Louis Cardinals. A similar thing happened Wednesday, when Alex Wood bore too much of the burden in the decisive sixth inning.) The alternative has been to wear out the couple of arms that can get high-leverage outs until they are fatigued enough that they are no longer solutions.

“Clone Kenley Jansen,” Grantland’s Jonah Keri said this Wednesday on Baseball Tonight. “That’s the solution to their problems.”

Utley is a good gamble for the Dodgers. He is low-risk, high-reward at its finest for a team that can throw its money around as a Band-Aid. But unless he can pitch effectively in game-deciding situations (spoiler alert: he cannot), the same problem that made the Dodgers vulnerable down the stretch and into the postseason last year will again bite them in 2015.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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With two outs and Oakland Athletics third baseman Danny Valencia at the plate with a 1-2 count, Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw offered a fastball he thought would end the third inning.

But the pitch was too far outside.

Valencia got a piece of the ace’s next offering, sending Kershaw off the mound to try to field the ground ball headed toward third base—but he botched it. The ball bounced away from his glove a few times, and he couldn’t make the play at first.

Valencia got the hit, and frustration got the best of Kershaw.

The lefty slammed the ball on the ground and fired it into the dugout before returning to the mound.

He struck out the next batter, Josh Phegley, as the A’s held on to a 1-0 lead.

[MLB]

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After his Colorado Rockies were swept last week at Citi Field, Nolan Arenado explained it away by raving about the New York Mets‘ pitching.

“The Mets have four No. 1’s. We saw all four of them,” Arenado said.

No one ever says that about the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Dodgers may well have the best two starting pitchers in baseball in Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. And they may well have the most underwhelming back end of a rotation of any playoff contender.

It’s no coincidence that since the start of July, the Dodgers have gone 12-3 when Kershaw or Greinke starts a game—and 11-16 when anyone else starts.

“It’s still hard to believe that they didn’t go out and get another big starter,” one rival scout said Monday.

But they didn’t. They’ll go into the playoffs in seven weeks with Kershaw, Greinke and whoever is left, and they’ll make the best of it. And if the standings stay as they are today, they’ll open the Division Series against a Mets team that can counter with Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Jonathon Niese.

Arenado was being a little generous when he called them “four No. 1’s,” since Syndergaard is still developing and Niese isn’t in that class. But Syndergaard without a doubt has No. 1 stuff, and before long the Mets could have Steven Matz in Niese’s place.

Regardless, scouts would overwhelmingly agree that the Mets’ rotation is deeper. So which group would they take in a playoff series?

“We were just talking about that the other day [at Citi Field],” one NL scout said. “If you had one four-game series, and you had to win three games, you’d take the Mets. But in the playoffs, you’d have to give the advantage to the Dodgers, because of their experience, their track record, and the fact that they’re both true No. 1’s.”

A few necessary reminders here: The Dodgers have had Kershaw and Greinke together for two Octobers already, and they didn’t win either time (losing to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS in 2013 and to the Cardinals in the Division Series in 2014). They’re 2-2 in Greinke’s four postseason starts for them, and 0-4 when Kershaw starts against the Cardinals in October.

And for all the concern about rotation depth, the team that won the World Series in 2014 did it with just one dependable starting pitcher. Take out Madison Bumgarner, and the Giants rotation last October was 1-3 with a 5.59 ERA in 11 postseason starts.

It worked, because Bumgarner was historically good and because Bruce Bochy always finds a way to win in October. But even Bochy wouldn’t want to try it again with just one starter he could count on.

What about with two?

“I’d take two great ones,” said Jim Leyland, who managed in the postseason eight times with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Florida Marlins and Detroit Tigers. “I’d like two guys you think for sure will shut them down.”

Even without asking anyone to pitch on short rest, a team like the Dodgers could use their top two starters three times in a best-of-five Division Series, and four times in a possible seven games in the LCS and World Series. Win all of those starts and you’ve got yourselves a championship.

If you’re willing to push a starter on short rest, as the Dodgers did with Kershaw each of the past two seasons, you can minimize the back of the rotation even more.

With one pitcher on short rest, your big two could start four of the five games in the first round, or five of the seven in the LCS or World Series.

It’s hard to imagine the Mets pushing any of their aces that hard, especially in a year when Harvey and Syndergaard are both subject to innings limits that could lead to extra days off or skipped starts down the stretch (general manager Sandy Alderson has said that the innings limits won’t keep them out of the postseason).

With their depth, though, the Mets would have less need to start anyone on short rest.

The Mets have other postseason questions, starting with the biggest one of all: Can they hold off the favored Washington Nationals to win the NL East? Bullpen depth has also become a significant issue, showing up over the weekend when the Pirates swept three games at Citi Field.

The Dodgers have other questions, too. Like the Mets, they tried to strengthen the middle of their bullpen at the July 31 deadline; like the Mets, they may not have done enough. The Dodgers still face a strong challenge from the Giants in the NL West, and if they need Kershaw or Greinke to pitch a wild-card game, the rotation depth would become a bigger problem.

There’s time for that to play out, and there’s time to discuss it. The question on the table today is a much simpler one: If you had your pick for October, do you take Greinke and Kershaw, or do you prefer the Mets’ deeper rotation?

I’m taking Greinke and Kershaw.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

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The sport of baseball has three true outcomes, a concept that’s unfolded as the era of advanced metrics has gained mainstream popularity within the game and amongst its fans.

These outcomes, based on the fact that defense has zero effect on them, are the home run, the walk and the strikeout. These are the only results determined by the batter and pitcher alone, not counting for things like pitch framing or floating strike zones, of course.

In 2015, the three true outcomes found their poster boy in Joc Pederson. The Los Angeles Dodgers rookie center fielder burst into his first full season as a power-hitting strikeout machine with a keen eye and awareness of the zone. This led to plenty of home runs, even more strikeouts, a high on-base percentage, a starting spot in last month’s All-Star Game (because of injuries to other outfielders) and front-running the National League’s Rookie of the Year race.

Then July happened, and the first part of August followed. And two of the three true outcomes virtually disappeared from Pederson’s arsenal, as did nearly all of his value.

His fourth outcome became a drop from the top to the bottom of the batting order, and the fifth was a benching. The sixth, a stint back in the minors, has yet to be discussed by the Dodgers brass, but if Pederson’s trends don’t shift soon, his electric start will give way to a debilitating liability for a team with World Series aspirations.

Don Mattingly said he has heard no internal talk about sending Joc Pederson down until he irons out his swing. Defense too important.

— Mark Saxon (@markasaxon) August 4, 2015

“At some point, if you hit .220 and you don’t hit homers then there’s other things that you try to do,” manager Don Mattingly told reporters last week. “You have to make organizational decisions.

“I don’t think there’s anybody trying to make those right now. And there’s nobody thinking Joc won’t hit. We all believe in Joc still and what he’s going to be able to do. It’s going to be a little bit of a learning process for him this year too.”

The first part of that process was euphoric. Pederson had a 1.057 OPS, .461 OBP, four home runs, 17 walks and 22 strikeouts in 77 April plate appearances. In May, he hit nine homers and drew 16 more walks.

Overall, from April through June, the 23-year-old had a .911 OPS, hit 20 home runs, had a .384 OPB and a 94/55 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He also had a 155 wRC+, a .390 wOBA and a .282 ISO. All three of those marks put him among the game’s elite hitters and MVP candidates.

In July, his OPS was .488. He struck out 31 times and walked four. His OBP plummeted to .229. His wRC+ sank to 38, his wOBA to .211 and his ISO to .090. Him being in the lineup actually cost the Dodgers a half a win, according to FanGraphs.

Pederson also stopped hitting the ball hard in July. His percentage of hard-hit balls dropped 17 percent, and his soft contact rose 13. His line-drive rate dropped three percent, his fly-ball rate dropped seven and his ground-ball rate rose by 10 (h/t Beyond The Box Score for those comparisons).

Those numbers led to Mattingly dropping Pederson from the leadoff spot, where he hit for most of the first half, to the bottom half of the order near the end of the month. Then he benched Pederson for a couple of games two weekends ago. However, Pederson went hitless and struck out three times without a walk in his return. It was his third consecutive game of that ilk as he faded from Rookie of the Year discussions.

Pederson currently has one home run in his last 128 plate appearances after going 0-for-3 Sunday. The only power he’s shown in that time was the energizing show he put on during the Home Run Derby to finish runner-up.

“A lot of times you don’t realize that you’re [pressing],” Mattingly said of Pederson‘s benching. “You see so much more when you don’t have to try to perform that day. Young guys get caught up and their mind starts going over all kinds of stuff.

“Sometimes you can’t see the forest from in the trees. You get too close to it and you don’t see the big picture. I want him to see the big picture.”

The smaller, immediate picture is that Pederson is getting back one of the true outcomes. In his last 23 plate appearances, he has walked nine times, once intentionally, and struck out three times. He still is not showing much power, though.

Pederson does not rate as an outstanding defensive center fielder by the metrics, but the Dodgers still value him as a critical piece of their up-the-middle defense. And considering they don’t have great replacement options at that position and that it is nearly mid-August, optioning him to the minors seems like a long shot.

“You don’t do anything. Keep going,” Mattingly told reporters over the weekend. “Now is not the time to start messing with our club and what we’ve been doing all year. We’ve been a club that plays good defense up the middle.

“We’re trying to win games at this point. He’s been our center fielder all year long. We know who he is. We know what he’s going to be.”

For now, the Dodgers are surviving with Pederson being almost exactly what he wasn’t in the season’s first three months. Going forward and into the postseason, assuming their season lasts that long, their offense desperately needs Pederson to return to being the showcase player for the three true outcomes.

The Dodgers can live with the negative outcome if the other two positive ones are present. If only the negative is there, as has been the case for most of the second half, Pederson will be more of a liability than a help to the ultimate goal.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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Two of the National League’s best teams will duke it out Friday in the first of three games at PNC Park as the Pittsburgh Pirates host the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are road favorites for the contest at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark.

The NL West-leading Dodgers wrap up a six-game eastern road trip in Pittsburgh after taking two of three from the Philadelphia Phillies to improve to 6-1 in their past seven games overall.

Los Angeles got an outstanding hitting performance Thursday at Philadelphia from pitcher Zack Greinke, who went 3-for-3 from the plate with a home run to help overcome his worst start in three years during a 10-8 victory.

The Dodgers have now hit double digits in runs twice in seven games with the over going 4-3 for totals bettors during that stretch. However, the under had cashed in three of Los Angeles’ previous four games before Thursday.

The Pirates still hold the lead for the top wild-card spot in the National League, and they are 7-1 to win the NL pennant and 14-1 on the odds to win the World Series compared to 7-1 for the Dodgers on the World Series odds.

Pittsburgh has alternated wins and losses in seven straight games and will send ace Gerrit Cole (14-5, 2.29 ERA) to the mound in the series opener. Cole and the Pirates will take on Los Angeles’ Clayton Kershaw (9-6, 2.37), who currently has a 37-inning scoreless streak.

Pittsburgh has seen the under cash in three of four, and Friday’s pitching matchup makes it a good candidate to become four of five. The Pirates have lost three of Cole’s last four starts following a run of nine wins in 10 outings, and the under has cashed in each of his past three following a run of four consecutive over results.

The other two games of the Pirates vs. Dodgers betting matchup on Saturday and Sunday set up well for Pittsburgh from a starting pitching perspective and could mean favorite status in both. On Saturday, lefty Francisco Liriano (7-6, 2.92) will toe the rubber for the Pirates against Mat Latos (4-7, 4.29) of the Dodgers.

Then the Sunday Night Baseball matchup will feature Pittsburgh’s Charlie Morton (7-4, 4.19) versus Los Angeles’ Alex Wood (7-7, 3.65). Bettors should keep in mind that the Pirates still own one of the best home records in baseball (36-18), while the Dodgers have a losing mark on the road (25-28).

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Two teams that haven’t won the World Series in more than two decades went all in at the July 31 trade deadline.

One team with a $230 million payroll and a 27-year drought did not.

The Kansas City Royals and Toronto Blue Jays acted as if they were desperate to win this year. The Los Angeles Dodgers did not.

The Dodgers still have a team good enough to win a first World Series since 1988. For all that money—and it’s actually more than $300 million, if you count the cash the Dodgers have included in trades—they ought to have a chance.

But for all that money, shouldn’t they have more than just a chance? If they were desperate to win this year, shouldn’t they have ended up with David Price or Cole Hamels as their big pitching addition, not Mat Latos?

Latos has talent, and scouts who saw him over the last month will tell you that he looked as good as his July numbers (a 1.80 ERA in three starts after coming off the disabled list) would indicate. Also, as a free agent at the end of the season, there’s more chance that he’ll be motivated and less chance that he’ll disrupt an already volatile clubhouse.

But he’s not Price, the left-hander who went to the Blue Jays and showed again in his Monday debut why he was considered the top talent on the market.

Many people in baseball expected the Dodgers to get Price, especially after Hamels went from the Philadelphia Phillies to the Texas Rangers. But when the Dodgers made it clear to the Detroit Tigers that all of their top prospects would be off-limits in trade talks (not just Corey Seager and Julio Urias, but lesser names like Jose De Leon, as well), the talks never got serious.

The Tigers quickly understood that they could do better by sending Price elsewhere, and in the deal with Toronto, they got three quality left-handed pitchers. The Dodgers got Latos, Alex Wood, Luis Avilan and Jim Johnson without parting with any top young prospects because they were willing to take on so much salary in what became a three-way deal with the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves.

It’s a fair argument that the Dodgers still got what they needed, a solid big league starter to put behind Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, another good young arm in Wood and a pair of arms to add to their shaky bullpen. They didn’t do badly at the deadline, not at all.

But with all that money spent and no World Series titles since the Kirk Gibson-inspired 1988 championship, the lingering question will always be whether they should have done better.

With Kershaw, Greinke and Price (or Hamels), the Dodgers would have looked like overwhelming favorites. With Kershaw, Greinke and Latos, they look like a team that could win, if things break their way.

The first weekend with the new rotation went just fine, with Greinke, Kershaw and Latos combining for 22 innings with just three runs allowed to the Los Angeles Angels, as the Dodgers swept the Freeway Series.

Nice start, but the Freeway Series isn’t the World Series.

To get to the real thing, the Dodgers may well need to get past the St. Louis Cardinals, the team that has eliminated them the last two seasons (and the team Kershaw has a 7.14 ERA against in four starts in those two series). The Dodgers had their Kershaw-Greinke combination in those two series too. They had Hyun-jin Ryu as their third starter.

And it wasn’t enough.

The Dodgers still aren’t an offensive powerhouse (they’re 15th in MLB in runs scored), and their bullpen still doesn’t dominate (their 3.91 relief ERA is 23rd in the majors). They have questions at the top of their batting order, where Jimmy Rollins (.272 on-base percentage) has replaced rookie Joc Pederson (.488 OPS with four walks and 31 strikeouts in 96 July plate appearances).

They’ve been good enough to stay atop the National League West, good enough to play at a pace that projects to 93 wins, right about what they had last year and the year before.

They should get to the playoffs, and they should get there with some chance to win it all. They’ll get there having preserved the prospect base that gives them a solid future.

All that is fine, and in an analytical sense, I’m sure it all fits. But baseball is an emotional game, too, and Dodger fans’ emotions tell them it’s been an awful long time since they celebrated a championship.

Perhaps this could have been the year. Perhaps it still could be.

For a third of a billion dollars, or whatever it is the Dodgers are spending, you’d think they could do better than perhaps.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

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You could call it a comeback.

Except Clayton Kershaw never went anywhere. 

The best pitcher on the planet still is and has been for most of this season. It’s fair to say he hasn’t been as good as he was a year ago, but you would just barely be correct in that assessment.

The wins and the ERA are not where they were in 2014, but we should all be able to agree that advanced metrics have produced far better barometers to judge a pitcher. And when you look at those things, you realize Kershaw has been every bit the ace the Los Angeles Dodgers need him to be as they attempt to win a third consecutive National League West Championship this season.

He continued to prove so Saturday afternoon as he dominated the Washington Nationals in a 4-2 victory. Kershaw was a victim of the Dodgers’ new hesitation to let pitchers throw complete games—they have just three despite the rotation having the fourth-lowest ERA in the majors—so he reached eight shutout innings, striking out 14 and allowing three hits. He generated 30 swings and misses, tied for the most in a game in the last seven years, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

He used just 101 pitches to do so and lowered his ERA to 2.68, putting him in the league’s top 10.

Kershaw also struck out Bryce Harper, the likely National League MVP, three times as he posted a 90 Game Score, tied for the eighth-highest in the majors this season. For reference, Max Scherzer’s 16-strikeout, one-hit performance in Milwaukee last month was a 100, and his no-hitter was 97.

“He went out there like the MVP that he is,” Harper said after the game, per Jacob Emert of MLB.com. “He was pretty devastating. We tried to go in there and did what we could. I think he is the best pitcher in baseball.”

The prevailing belief when looking at Kershaw’s record and ERA over his first nine starts this year was that he was experiencing a big letdown from 2014, when he swept the league’s Cy Young and MVP Awards. His ERA had hit 4.32, he was 2-3 and the Dodgers were 4-5 in those games.

While Kershaw wasn’t as sharp early in the year, his results were just as much a product of some bad luck and bad breaks, which all pitchers experience. But at times, his frustration was palpable.

“I don’t feel like answering questions right now,” the normally media-friendly Kershaw told MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick after his May 4 start against Milwaukee, when he let a three-run lead in the sixth inning slip away. “I don’t want to analyze it right now. Thanks.”

Plenty of people analyzed those first nine starts for him, though. The conclusion was he was experiencing some bad luck—his .349 BABIP at the time would have been the worst of his career, as would his 65 percent strand rate—that could easily be amended.

Kershaw was still dominating. He was striking out hitters at a blistering rate, placing in the game’s top five in strikeouts per nine innings, strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio. His xFIP was a major league-best 2.15 going into that ninth start. 

In start No. 10, Kershaw turned the corner and hit the turbo booster. He went seven shutout innings and struck out 10 Atlanta Braves that night. From that start going into the All-Star break, Kershaw had a 1.53 ERA and his BABIP dropped to a more realistic (for him) .270.

Coming out of the break against the Nationals was more of the same, and Kershaw has been as good, even better, than he was in his marvelous 2014. Dodge Insider provided Kershaw’s stats:

Clayton Kershaw, 2014: 1.77 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 10.9 K/9 Clayton Kershaw, past 10 starts: 1.36 ERA, 0.78 WHIP, 12.5 K/9 http://t.co/NK5pIGBANN

— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) July 18, 2015

Also, with what he did Saturday in D.C., Kershaw became the first pitcher in 100 years with 10-plus strikeouts, no runs allowed and no walks in back-to-back starts, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

“It’s probably as close as I can remember his stuff being to his no-hitter day back last June,” catcher A.J. Ellis told Emert after the game, referencing Kershaw’s nearly perfect game last year.

In a season many thought to be a down one for Kershaw, he is proving that to be absolutely false while continuing to make history.

His FIP was 2.38 entering the game Saturday, third-lowest in the majors. His xFIP was 2.06, best in the majors. And his FanGraphs WAR was 3.7, fourth-best in the majors.

Kershaw might not have put up the prominent numbers early on, the kinds that please fans late to the party thrown by advanced metrics. But he was still quite good and one of the best in the business of throwing baseballs. A correction was bound to happen.

We are seeing that now, and it has made things painfully obvious to the rest of the sport and some of its best hitters, like Harper.

Clayton Kershaw is still the best pitcher in Major League Baseball.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Los Angeles Dodgers have had a moderately successful 2015 thus far. They sit in first place in the National League West even though half of their Opening Day rotation is out for the year, Joc Pederson has been a breakout star and new additions Yasmani Grandal and Howie Kendrick have been valuable members of the lineup.

All has not been perfect, however. Jimmy Rollins has struggled, and the bullpen has suffered its fair share of injuries. The farm system appears to be well-equipped to handle this problem, though. With a series of high-strikeout arms and an elite shortstop, the Dodgers may be able to solve many of their problems internally.

Notes: The following list is courtesy of MLB.com. Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and are current through June 28.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers’ lead in the National League West is just 1.5 games, which can be seen as both a positive and a negative at this point of the season. On one hand, the team has suffered massive injuries to key contributors and remains in first place. On the other hand, though, it has gotten some surprisingly positive performances but has been unable to build any kind of lead on San Francisco.

Thus we have learned that this team is flawed. Its flaws are not irreparable, nor are they necessarily damning. The team certainly has many positives as well. The following sections will touch on the main takeaways from the first half of the season—both positively and negatively.

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