Clayton Kershaw Tosses Six Scoreless in 2020 Dodgers Debut

Clayton Kershaw Tosses 5 2/3 Scoreless in 2020 Dodgers Debut

Clayton Kershaw's 2020 debut could not have gone better. In his return from a nine-game absence due to back soreness, the Dodgers' long-time ace tossed 5 2/3 shutout innings, limited the DBacks to three hits and did not allow a walk while recording six strikeouts Sunday at Chase Field. He threw 81 pitches, 57 of them for strikes. The Dodgers went on to win, 3-0, to improve to 7-3 on the year.

Two of the three Arizona hits were weakly-struck ground balls, one of which went through the second-base hole with L.A. shifting up the middle. The other was a little dribbler hit to the same spot, with first baseman Max Muncy throwing to the pitcher a tad late covering first.

After throwing his fastball in the 89-91 mph range throughout the 2019 season, the left-hander was consistently at 92 and 93 all afternoon. He was spotting all of his pitches beautifully. All in all the club and player should be quite pleased. To say the least.

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Pedro Baez relieved and got the final out for his club in the bottom of the sixth inning and stayed in to pitch the seventh without issue. Scott Alexander pitched a clean eighth and Kenley Jansen allowed a walk in the ninth, along with a 400-foot flyout to center by Kole Calhoun to end the game, earning his second save.

Los Angeles took three of four in Phoenix, and with the little two-game sweep in Houston, has won five of the first six of what is the longest road trip of the season, with three to play in San Diego beginning Monday night.

Also of note was Mookie Betts being hit for by Edwin Rios and replaced in right field by Kiké Hernandez, exiting with a sore middle finger on the left hand. Cody Bellinger returned following a one-game absence after struggling through the first eight games of the season and hit a laser to right field for a home run in the first. He hit a similar ball in the second at bat for an out and settled for a 1-4 afternoon.

Howard Cole has been writing about baseball on the internet since Y2K. Follow him on Twitter.