The news wasn’t all bad on Friday.

Prior to his team’s embarrassing 5-2 loss to the worst team in baseball on Friday night, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters that a Friday morning MRI on Dodgers future Hall of Fame left-hander Clayton Kershaw, who had been placed on the 10-day injured list on Wednesday for left elbow inflammation, came back negative.

“Clayton had an MRI this morning and just like we expected, it was just inflammation,” Roberts said. “He’s going to start playing catch again [Saturday] and enjoy the [All-Star] break with his family, and we’ll figure out when, in the second half, we’ll pencil him back into the rotation.”

Kershaw last pitched on Saturday, July 3rd against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park, his 18th start of the season, in which he allowed three runs on three hits, with one walk with three strikeouts over four innings on 54 pitches (34 strikes) before a fast-moving storm forced an hour and 45-minute rain delay. However, when play resumed, Kershaw did not return to the mound, as Roberts did not want to have his ace go through another lengthy warm-up period. It wasn’t until a few days later that the 33-year-old Dallas, TX native and Dodgers first-round draft pick in 2006 out of Highland Park High School in University Park, TX told his manager that he was experiencing soreness in his left elbow, promoting the team to place him on the 10-day IL as a precaution.

“It was soreness, and he’s never had soreness in his elbow,” Roberts explained. “So we just wanted to kind of check all the boxes and make sure that there was nothing else to it. Fortunately, there wasn’t.”

Fortunate indeed.

Unfortunately, following three impressive four-hit shutout innings on Friday night by 35-year-old Dodgers left-hander David Price, his longest outing of the season, the Dodgers bullpen – aided by huge errors by Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner and first baseman Max Muncy – allowed a combined five runs on four hits, while the Dodgers could only muster two runs on five hits against the now 26-64 NL West last-place Arizona Diamondbacks. The Dodgers have now committed at least one error in each of their last six games and 13 in their last eight.

“When you’re not scoring runs consistently, things certainly get more magnified,” Roberts said, after his team’s embarrassing loss on Friday night. “It’s hard to pitch [perfectly,] and we’ve got to be good on defense. When you’re not scoring runs, you’ve got to make sure those things are airtight, and tonight it wasn’t.”

Ya think?

And if that wasn’t enough for frustrated Dodger fans, both the NL West-leading San Francisco Giants and third-place San Diego Padres won their respective games on Friday. As a result and coupled with the Dodgers’ humiliating loss on Friday, Roberts’ team now trails the Giants by two full games and are now only two games ahead of the Padres in the Division, with two games remaining before the (very much-needed) All-Star break. Fortunately, if you can call it that, both of those games are against the D-backs.

…so there’s that.

Play Ball!

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