A crowd of over 50,000 were in attendance at Dodger Stadium to see the best pitcher in the major leagues make his start. Clayton Kershaw threw a complete game against the Brewers, striking out eleven while giving up five hits with no walks. Kershaw threw 97 pitches and walked off the mound to a standing ovation from the Dodger faithful. On first thought, you would think the two time NL Cy Young award winning ace cruised through the evening. That wasn’t the case. Four of the five hits were for extra bases, including two home runs and a double that put up three runs against Kershaw. The lefty ace began the game retiring the first nine batters he faced, striking out four of them. Kershaw was coming off his last dominant performance of the season which was against the Brewers last week. In the 3-2 loss, Kershaw goes to 14-3 on the season.
Carl Crawford reached base safely on a ground ball to second base in the fourth. Justin Turner followed with an RBI single to drive in Crawford but was thrown out at second base. AJ Ellis singled, and Miguel Rojas grounded out softly to the pitcher to end the inning and the scoring at one. The Dodgers sat at one run until the ninth inning, when Matt Kemp led off with his first hit of the game, sending a shot to left field that bent around the foul pole to cut the lead down to 3-2. Kemp broke a tie with Pedro Guerrero and moved into sole possession of fifth place on the Los Angeles Dodgers career home run list with 172 home runs. Crawford struck out swinging for the first out in the ninth, finishing his night off going 2-4. Turner struck out for the second out, and the pinch hitting Andre Eithier grounded out to end the game.
The boys in blue drop their second game in a row and four of the last five with the NL Central leading Milwaukee Brewers. Los Angeles placed Juan Uribe on the 15 day disabled list with the sore right hamstring, joining Hanley Ramirez and starting pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu on the injured list. Dan Haren will take the ball in the afternoon series closing game on Sunday. The Dodgers remain five games ahead of the Giants in the NL West.