When Dodgers future Hall of Fame lefthander Clayton Kershaw took the mound at Coors Field in Denver, CO against the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night, he did so with an excellent 5-1 record and excellent 2.00 earned run average. When he exited the game after only 4.0 innings pitched, he did so with his team trailing 6-2 in the Dodgers eventual 7-4 – and second consecutive – loss to their last place division rivals, and Kershaw’s second loss of the season.

“I’m gonna go with just not overthink it and just say I sucked today and just thankfully they’ll let me do it again in five days, but not a lot of positives today, for sure,” a brutally honest Kershaw answered postgame when asked what his takeaway of the game was.

When asked if pitching at mile-high Coors Field had anything to do with his very un-Kershaw-like performance, the 34-year-old Dallas, TX native and Dodgers first-round draft pick in 2006 out of Highland Park High School in University Park, TX gave a very Kershaw-like answer.

“I don’t think I would have pitched well anywhere today,” he answered. “So, it just wasn’t very good all the way around.

“I don’t really think about Coors Field, just try to think about it like on any other day, and like I said, I don’t think I would have pitched well anywhere today,” Kershaw added.

In true (and unwarranted) Kershaw self-deprecation style, when asked why he felt this way, the future Hall of Famer answered “I don’t know, lack of skill.”

Yeah, right.

Pushed further, Kershaw added “I can’t expect to pitch well every time, but I haven’t pitched this bad in a while.”

Then again, if what many consider to be the most potent offense in the National League (if not in all of baseball) manages only four runs on nine hits, it most certainly is unfair to hang this one entirely on the game’s best left-hander since Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax.

“Tonight’s just one of those things that he just didn’t have his pitch mix tonight, it was just an off night. It’s bound to happen at some point,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said postgame. “He did what he could to give us as much length as he could.

“He’s pitched well here, so it’s not something that he doesn’t pitch well here, it’s just one of those nights that (he) just didn’t have his pitch mix working,” added the Dodgers skipper.

But the game wasn’t a complete disaster, 29-year-old Dodgers second baseman Hanser Alberto hit his second home run of the season, a solo shot to left field off of Rockies left-handed starter Kyle Freeland in the top of the second inning, to give the Dodgers a (very) brief 2-1 lead; and Messrs. Max Muncy and Trea Turner also hit solo home runs in the sixth and ninth innings respectively; their sixth and 11th, also respectively.

“I though tonight Max was back, I thought he took some really good swings tonight,” Roberts said. “It was good to see Hanser hit a homer against a left-handed pitcher. We just couldn’t really tack on or get back into the game.”

The Dodgers wrap up their three-game series with the Rockies at Coors Field and their nine-game/three-city road trip on Wednesday evening before returning to Dodger Stadium to open a 10-game homestand – three against the NL West second-place San Diego Padres, three against these same Rockies, and four against the Chicago Cubs.

Play Ball!

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