When you're one of the best pitchers in baseball, having won 3 Cy Young awards and an MVP...you can afford to crouch behind Hyun-Jin Ryu for a season.
I'll be frank, this has been Clayton Kershaw's best season since 2017. True, right now he has his highest season ERA since 2010, with 2.83, but he's got a 10-2 record, he's got 122 strikeouts, and he's one of the most valuable pitchers on the team. He's not showing off. That's the main point of all of this.
I mean, back in the early days of the decade, he was REALLY showing off, leading the leagues in strikeouts 3 times and in ERA 5 times. But...he's gotten enough career accolades that he can just...have a perfectly solid season without there being many trumpets attached to them, which I can respect. I don't think it's an indictment on Kershaw's career arc, like 'oh, this is the end of his prime numbers', or anything like that. This is still a solid season for any other great pitcher, especially one playing for the best team in baseball. He's got two months left, and odds are he'll end up with like 17 or so wins, and 200 strikeouts, so we'll be fine. Kershaw's still a Hall of Famer, he's just having a normal-for-him season. Which is still awesome.
The rest of the team ain't too shabby either. Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin are covering some rotation spots, and it's all going well. May has been rightfully dubbed Gingergaard, while nobody seems to have followed my lead on calling Gonsolin 'Tony Clifton', because THAT IS WHO HE LOOKS LIKE. THAT DOUBLE CHIN ISN'T HELPING. Both have been great additions to the fold so far, and Kershaw, Maeda, Ryu and Buehler have been solid. Buehler is leading the team in strikeouts with 150, which is nice, even if we're not at Gerrit Cole levels quite yet.
And not only do we still have the Will Smith/Matt Beaty rookie combo still going wild at the plate, but Kris Negron, a guy who was less traded to the Dodgers and more DFA'd conveniently, is batting .400 with 2 home runs and 5 RBIs in 6 games. This is one of those teams where even the bench could kill ya if they wanted to, and with Pederson and Russ Martin on there, they certainly can.
The Dodgers keep impressing me more and more with every win milestone. I hope they keep it up.
Coming Tonight: One of the many trusted home run hitters in the Bronx.
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