LOS ANGELES — When they were teammates, Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke elicited comparisons to Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale — mirror images of great pitching, one left-handed and the…
LOS ANGELES — When they were teammates, Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke elicited comparisons to Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale — mirror images of great pitching, one left-handed and the other right-handed.
Friday, Greinke’s three seasons as a Dodger felt so far removed from the present, they might as well be preserved in sepia-toned images.
The anticipated duel between Greinke and Kershaw, pitching opposite each other for the first time, never materialized.
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“It’s not a lot of fun to face guys that you know and consider a friend,” Kershaw said. “We did a good job against (Greinke) tonight. Really battled. Made him throw a lot of pitches. Didn’t really give him any easy outs.”
Greinke (1-1) was booed by the announced crowd of 49,438 at Dodger Stadium when his name was announced during warmups. The Dodgers then shelled him for five runs in five innings.
No two players will earn more this year in base salary than Kershaw ($35,571,428) and Greinke ($34 million), who signed a six-year, $206.5 million contract with Arizona in December of 2015. But the disparity between the two pitchers never seemed greater.
“Mainly just good at-bats by them,” Greinke said. “They seem to do that a lot against me. Last year, same thing. Even the good games I threw, it was a tougher game. Today, same thing.”
Greinke was 51-15 with a 2.30 ERA in Los Angeles from 2013-15. He collected Cy Young votes all three seasons.
In 2016, his first season in Arizona, he went 13-7 with a 4.37 ERA. He allowed eight runs in four innings in his return to Dodger Stadium last September. Greinke’s fastball regularly touched 95 miles per hour as a Dodger but has yet to top 93 this season.
“His fastball still had life,” Kershaw said of Greinke. “His changeup still got me to swing every time. Looked pretty good to me.”
Kershaw looked better.
In his third start of the season, Kershaw (2-1) allowed one run on four hits in 8 1/3 innings. He walked one batter and struck out eight. After Chris Owings doubled in Chris Iannetta on Kershaw’s 100th pitch, he left the mound to a standing ovation.
Kershaw retired the first 10 batters he faced, taking a perfect game into the fourth inning. The Diamondbacks’ 11th batter, Owings, nearly took Kershaw’s head off.
Owings lined an 0-and-1 fastball back up the middle of the diamond, 101.3 mph as it whizzed past. The ball grazed Kershaw’s arm, leaving a small mark. The perfect game was over.
The next batter, Paul Goldschmidt, worked a full count then watched a slider tail out of the strike zone for ball four. It was the first walk Kershaw has issued this season. Both runners moved up on a curveball that bounced several feet in front of Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal.
But Kershaw got Yasmany Tomas to look at a fastball for strike three, and Brandon Drury grounded out to end the threat. That began a new streak of 12 consecutive batters retired by Kershaw.
“After he didn’t have the great outing in Colorado” in his last start, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, “you knew that someone was going to have to pay. Even if there’s more incentive to compete against Zack on the other side, he was focused. He’s always focused. I guess even a little bit more hyper-focused intensity. Our club needed that lift.”
Greinke struck out in his only plate appearance against Kershaw.
“I didn’t see the ball really good,” he said. “My eyes were kind of blurry when he was pitching for some reason. But then I didn’t see him good, either. I don’t know. Wish I saw him more. But I definitely wasn’t close to hitting him.”
The Dodgers touched Greinke for two runs in the third inning, two in the fourth and one in the fifth. Every position player in the lineup reached base against him at least once.
Andrew Toles’ third home run of the season, a two-run shot off Randall Delgado in the eighth inning, pushed the Dodgers’ lead to 7-0.
Toles, Yasmani Grandal, Logan Forsythe, Justin Turner and Corey Seager finished with two hits each on a night the Dodgers totaled 13. Seager also walked twice.
The Dodgers’ bullpen remained seated until the ninth inning, when Iannetta led off with a single against Kershaw. Iannetta scored all the way from first base on Owings’ double, barely sliding in ahead of Grandal’s tag.
Pedro Baez, making his 2017 debut, got the final two outs in relief of Kershaw.
