As a surprise to absolutely no one, Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw became the National League’s first 10-game winner on Monday night in front of 43,266 fans at Dodger Stadium. And even though the guy whose toughest critic is himself was visibly upset that he allowed a career-high four home runs in a single game and six total earned runs, when asked about his league-leading accomplishment, he gave the answer you would expect from the guy who is frequently referred to as ‘the best pitcher on the planet.’

“It’s tough to answer when you give up six runs, it’s not a great feeling,” Kershaw told reporters, after the game. “But at the same time, I play on a really good team, I guess. We’ve got a lot of guys swinging the bats well and picked me up today.

“There’s two ways you can go, you can either try to re-teach everything when you have a start like this or you can just say screw it and come back tomorrow and act like it didn’t happen, so I’m going to go with the latter for now, I think,” Kershaw added.

Even though Kershaw gave up four home runs in a single game for the first time in his career on Monday night, he also struck out 10 in his 6.1 innings of work, which is pretty incredible when you think about it. (Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

Part of that “not a great feeling” thing is the fact that Kershaw, who has never given up more than 16 home runs in any one of his previous nine MLB seasons, gave up four on Monday night to bring his season total to 17, and we’re not even to the halfway mark yet.

“I’m giving up a lot of home runs right now,” said Kershaw. “You hope mistakes are hit for singles or doubles or whatever, it just so happens that mine are going out of the ballpark right now. I don’t know what you do to change that, other than stop making mistakes, I guess.”

Like I said, his toughest critic.

In spite of the extremely rare six earned runs that Kershaw allowed in Monday’s eventual 10-6 win over the New York Mets, he is still owns one of the best ERA’s in all of baseball at 2.61 – second-best in the NL and sixth-best in the MLB. But, as noted, he now 10-2 on the season, with Kansas City Royals left-hander Jason Vargas currently sitting at 10-3 on the season.

But what does Dodger manager Dave Roberts think of his 29-year-old left-hander’s 10-strikeout / 6.1-inning performance on Monday night?

“It’s ironic, because I thought the stuff was the best it’s been over his last three starts,” Roberts said. “If you look at the whole body of work, 112 pitches, he made four mistakes and they unfortunately went out of the ballpark.”

As for the high number of home runs that Kershaw has allowed this season, Roberts is as much in the dark as the rest of us.

“I don’t have any answers, but I do know that they are hitting the ball in the air,” said the Dodger skipper. “His track record, I think, I’m certain it’ll even out, and this pace of giving up home runs for Clayton … definitely don’t see it continuing.”

It would, of course, be criminal not to mention the Dodgers incredible offense on Monday night night, in which they, too, cranked out four home runs – one by Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner (his fourth of the season), one by left fielder Chris Taylor (his ninth) and two by Dodgers rookie sensation first baseman / outfielder Cody Bellinger (his 20th and 21st). In fact, with his second home run of the night – a solo shot in the second inning that landed halfway up the Right Field Pavilion – he became the youngest player in MLB history to hit 21 home runs in his first 51 games.

“Yeah, it’s crazy. If you told me half of what I was going to do, I’d probably call you crazy,” Bellinger said. “You know, for me, like I said before, I’m going to come in tomorrow and do my same routine and try to put together some good at-bats.”

Asked if he knew who now leads the National League in home runs, a coy Bellinger got a chuckle from reporters with his answer.

“I don’t know … me?”

Yes young man, you indeed.

With the win and with both the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondback idle on Monday, the Dodgers now trail the Rockies by a half game and are a half game ahead of the Dbacks. Those standings will undoubtedly change over the next few days, as the two division rivals square off against one another in a three game series at Coors Field beginning tonight. Should the two teams exchange blows – as expected – and should the Dodgers’ red hot offense and pitching continue, the Dodgers could find themselves alone atop the NL West division as early as tonight.

…and that would be an even more beautiful thing.