Greinke, Kershaw struggle as NL loses All-Star Game
CINCINNATI – For the Los Angeles Dodgers to make their first World Series appearance since 1988, they'll probably have to lean heavily on their pair of Cy Young Award winners, Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke.
But the Dodgers won't have the benefit of home-field advantage if they get that far, largely due to the performance of their aces in the All-Star Game.
Greinke and Kershaw were charged with a total of three runs over three innings, and the latter took the loss as the American League prevailed over the National League 6-3 in Tuesday's 86th edition of the Midsummer Classic.
"It was fun until I started giving up runs,'' said Kershaw, touched for two fifth-inning runs as the AL went ahead to stay. "I felt fine. I wasn't really worried about throwing the ball where I wanted to. I was just trying to get people out.''
The Dodgers duo had a combined ERA of 2.12 coming in, with Greinke tossing 35 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings to earn the start, his first one in three All-Star Game outings. Kershaw, the reigning NL MVP and Cy Young winner, has not been as overwhelming as in the past, but still led the league with 160 strikeouts at the break.
AL batters didn't seem impressed.
Mike Trout, who repeated as the game's MVP, led off the first with a home run to right as the AL went ahead before the sound of the pregame flyover had fully dissipated. Trout, Greinke's teammate with the Los Angeles Angels in the second half of 2012, said he just missed on a previous pitch before connecting on a 1-2 fastball away.
"First couple of pitches, you get so excited,'' Trout said. "Once I got to two strikes, I calmed myself down a bit and just looked for the fastball.''
Greinke did bounce back after that, striking out four of the next seven batters he faced and leaving the game tied 1-1 after two innings. It remained that way until Kershaw took over in the fifth, and again Trout played a role.
This time, the game's consensus top player beat the relay on what appeared to be a certain double-play bouncer, and after Albert Pujols worked a two-out walk, Trout came in to score the go-ahead run on pinch-hitter Prince Fielder's single to left.
Kershaw has held lefty swingers to a .191 batting average over his brilliant career, and Fielder hasn't done much better (.200 in 15 at-bats), so it was a curious move by AL manager Ned Yost to call on him to replace right-handed-hitting Nelson Cruz.
It paid off, though.
Fielder said he didn't draw any extra satisfaction from getting to a pitcher of Kershaw's caliber, or any edge out of having faced him before.
"I don't care if my kids are pitching, I like it, getting hits," Fielder said. "I'm not cerebral when I hit. I just try to react."
Lorenzo Cain, one of seven Kansas City Royals in the game, followed Fielder's single with a double that extended the lead to 3-1. Like Fielder, Cain had not enjoyed much success against Kershaw, going 0-for-4 and striking out thrice the only time they'd faced each other, in June 2014.
The hat trick of K's stuck in Cain's craw, and he took an aggressive approach, swinging at the first pitch.
"I went up there looking for a fastball,'' Cain said. "He threw one inside, I was able to jump on it, put a good swing on it and I snuck it by (third baseman Todd) Frazier.''
The fifth inning ended up turning the game in the AL's favor, but Kershaw was not exactly beating himself up afterward, aware this is an exhibition and there's too much baseball ahead to start thinking about the loss's impact on the World Series.
Kershaw would prefer that the best record dictate who opens the World Series at home, but that's not the way it works.
"It's not really my favorite thing in the world to have it determine home field advantage,'' Kershaw said of the All-Star Game, "but I understand what they're trying to do.''
And he knows the Dodgers won't be getting that edge this year.