The number of Kershaw pitches was 80 after his removal. The truncated spring due to the padlock imposed by the owner had left it extended to about 75 pitches. Roberts, for better or worse, chose to err on the side of caution with his staff’s long anchor. The battery of Roberts, Kershaw and catcher Austin Barnes agreed with the decision. “As much as I would like to do it, I have thrown 75 pitches in a sim game,” Kershaw told reporters. “I would love to stay, but bigger things.” “Later in the season, when he’s a little more built, I think he’s going to get out there,” Barnes told the Los Angeles Times’ Mike DiGiovanna. “But I think that’s the right call, I’m getting him out there. It was the right move, for sure. I think he was a little tired.” Kershaw created 20 scents in the afternoon in total, with 17 of them coming against his slider, his main reason at the exit. He averaged 89.9 mph with his fastball, down about 0.7 mph from last year, although it is possible that the cold weather in Minnesota played a role in that number. The Dodgers took a 6-0 lead, entering eighth place thanks to a timely attack. Cody Bellinger, Austin Barnes and Gavin Lux were all tied for home solo races in the eighth, extending Los Angeles’ lead from 3-0 to 6-0. The only perfect game in the history of the Dodgers was made by Sandy Koufax in September 1965. Koufax, who won 14 members of the Chicago Cubs, was quite offended by his lineup that fateful day: the Dodgers finished with a run on a pair of baserunners; Neither team had a hit in the seventh period. The Dodgers franchise has dropped a total of 26 without success before Wednesday. The most recent one came in May 2018, when four pitchers came together to extinguish the San Diego Padres in a game played in Mexico. Kershaw himself had the last individual no in Dodgers history. He achieved the feat in June 2014 against the Colorado Rockies, a few weeks after his teammate Josh Beckett had given his own against the Philadelphia Phillies. Major League Baseball’s most recent perfect game happened when former Seattle Mariners ace Félix Hernández threw one on August 15, 2012 against the Tampa Bay Rays. The start of Wednesday marked Kershaw’s first substantial appearance since late last season. He missed the entire run after the Dodgers season due to discomfort in his forearm and elbow. However, Kershaw did not need surgery and returned to Los Angeles on a one-year, $ 17 million contract after removing the padlock in March.
