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‘One it the loneliest number you can ever do.

Two can be as bad as one, it’s the loneliest number since the number one.’

(Three Dog Night)

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Dodgers ace and future first ballot Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw gave up one run to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the top of the first inning of Saturday night’s Game-1 of the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium.

…and then another.

…and then another.

…and then another.

When the dust finally (and mercifully) settled, the 35-year-old Dallas, TX native and Dodgers first-round draft pick in 2006 out of Highland Park High School in Dallas had allowed six earned runs on six hits – while recording only one out – before finally (and mercifully) being replaced by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.

“Just disappointing, embarrassing,” Kershaw told reporters, after his very brief and very un-Kershaw-like nightmare start. “You feel like you left everybody down. Whole organization looks to you to pitch well in Game-1, and it’s just embarrassing really. I just feel like I let everybody down.

“It’s a tough way to start the postseason. Obviously, we still have a chance at this thing, but that wasn’t the way it should’ve started for me,” he added.

“It was a tough one. I think that obviously they took a lot of good swings. It seemed like they were on everything he threw up there,” echoed Roberts.

While the Dbacks finished the night with 11 runs (that’s not a typo) on 13 hits (ditto), the Dodgers managed only two runs on four hits (ditto). Both of those runs came on a one-out two-run triple to right field by Dodgers catcher Will Smith in the bottom of the eighth inning.

“I was thinking double,” Smith answered, when asked if he was thinking triple out of the box. “I just wanted those two runs to score.”

It was Smith’s second triple of the season and the seventh of his thus far five-year MLB career.

Fortunately, the Dodgers, with the undisputed single most powerful offense in all of baseball, have Sunday off to try to regroup before Game-2 on Monday, which will be started by 24-year-old Dodgers rookie Bobby Miller in what amounts to a must-win game.

“The irony is that last year we won the first game and then didn’t win a game after it. So, you know, hopefully that script flips,” said Roberts.

Hopefully indeed.

Play Ball!

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