Dodgers nearly pick up Kershaw on off night

His club is playing .667 ball at the quarter mark of this condensed season, yet Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said on Saturday it really hasn’t played a complete game, meaning firing on all cylinders.

That was again the case Saturday night, when Clayton Kershaw followed his dazzling debut with a three-homer dud against his favorite opponent, but Justin Turner nearly bailed him out by triggering a rally with his first home run of the season. In the end, the Giants held on for a 5-4 win at Dodger Stadium.

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Kershaw allowed three home runs, two to Giants leadoff hitter Austin Slater, and didn’t get out of the fifth inning. Last year, Kershaw allowed three home runs in a game three times, all from mid-August on. Judging from his terse answers after the game, it was hard to read whether Kershaw was more annoyed with losing, or losing to the rebuilding rivals that he had owned with a 23-12 career record and 1.74 ERA. Probably both.

“Just had a couple rough innings there,” said Kershaw, who had velocity but mislocated over the plate. “They did a good job. With two strikes they battled, did a good job all the way through. My command wasn’t quite as good tonight.”

The Dodgers didn’t do any battling the first five innings, as Johnny Cueto was throwing a no-hitter until his left fielder, Hunter Pence, lost Kiké Hernández’s routine fly in the twilight for a triple leading off the sixth inning. Before the inning was over, Cueto had walked two, dealt with a big toe blister, then served up a three-run homer to Turner and a five-run lead was cut to one.

“One of the biggest keys to Cueto is to get guys on base and get him out of the windup, so he can’t do all the quick pitch, turning and messing with guys' timing,” said Turner. “We had a hard time getting guys on until the ball got lost. Then Joc [Pederson] had a good at-bat and walked, Belli [Cody Bellinger] took a walk, and when you get him in the stretch, it’s a little easier to get to him. Unfortunately, it took us a long time tonight to get him in the stretch. That’s his game -- the quick pitch, the pause, the hesitation. The whole point of that is to mess with timing.”

Turner felt the offense let down Kershaw in this game.

“Our offense, we expect to score more runs than we did tonight,” he said. “Clayton didn’t have his best stuff and I thought they had a really good approach against him tonight and really stayed to the middle of the field. We’ve got to be able to pick him up there. He does so many times keeps us in games. When he doesn’t have his best stuff, we’ve got to do a better job scoring more runs for him.”

Turner, who called himself “a notoriously slow starter,” said guys are still working to catch up after the three-month break, “myself included.”

“I’ve been working through some stuff, trying to get comfortable and tinkering with some different hand positions and different stances and finally got to a spot a couple days ago where I’m feeling better, feeling more comfortable. The more comfortable you feel, the better you see the ball. The better you see the ball, the more strikes you swing at, the better chance you have to do damage. Hopefully, we’re trending up.”