SAN DIEGO — The windup looks the same, his arms stretching toward the sky and one leg paused in mid-air before delivery. The stuff coming out does not.

In his second start since returning from shoulder surgery, Clayton Kershaw was roughed up by the San Diego Padres for seven runs and failed to get through four innings in an 8-1 loss for the Dodgers on Wednesday night.

“Not very good,” Kershaw said afterward. “Just not a lot went well at all. Just got to pitch better.”

The same could apply to the Dodgers as a whole.

The surging Padres completed a sweep of the two-game series and have won nine of their past 10 games. The Dodgers finished with a losing record in July (11-13), their first losing record over a full calendar month since April 2018.

The combination has pulled the Padres to within 4½ games of the Dodgers in the National League West – the smallest the Dodgers’ lead has been since May 4.

“It’s a long year,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “There’s going to be injuries. There’s going to be tough times. There’s going to be good times which have been this year. So, yeah, it’s part of it. We’ll come out of it. No doubt about it. We’re the Dodgers. We’re the best team in baseball.”

There has been precious little evidence of that recently – and even farther back than just July. Since May 20, they are 30-29, the ninth-best record in the National League.

“The defense I love. We’re playing hard. I think offensively, the guys we run out there are prepared. They’re putting good at-bats together,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Overall, the pitching in general, we just haven’t had the effectiveness, the command. There’s a lot more homers in the last 30 days, in the month of July. The walk is up from all the pitchers. And it just puts a lot of stress on the offense.

“Yeah, we’re going to get back to health. I still like the guys we got. I still feel good every time we start a game. But we still have to go out there and play 27 outs.”

Kershaw could only get 11 of those against the Padres.

When Kershaw made his comeback start against the San Francisco Giants last Thursday, he allowed six hits in four innings – but he also struck out six and got 14 swings-and-misses in all, eight on his slider.

There was none of that against the Padres. He didn’t strike out a batter – the first time in his career that Kershaw started a regular-season game and didn’t record a strikeout. He didn’t get a swing-and-miss until his 23rd pitch (a slider to Padres catcher Luis Campusano) and got just one more (on the 81st of his 83 pitches).

In his four innings against the Giants, Kershaw’s fastball averaged 90.6 mph – in line with his average fastball over the three seasons before shoulder surgery. Against the Padres, it dipped below 90 mph.

“Just wasn’t executing,” Kershaw said. “Wasn’t throwing really anything that I wanted to, where I wanted to. Frustrating overall.”

Roberts said it’s not surprising that Kershaw’s return from surgery would have its bumps.

“I think it’s hard to ever bet again Clayton,” he said. “The last one (against the Giants) I thought was very good and tonight just wasn’t great. I think he’ll be the first to say that. But it’s part of the process. I just don’t think that anyone can expect him to come back and be lights out every start out, certainly after two starts.”

Kershaw acknowledged that there might be some rust after rehab.

“Physically I feel fine,” he said. “I mean honestly I felt pretty good with the last one overall. But this one obviously, this was really bad. I didn’t think there was rust, but maybe. I don’t know. Just got to pitch better.

“There’s a lot you can overanalyze when you pitch bad, but for right now I’m just going to say it was bad and try to pitch better the next one.”

Kershaw’s troubles started in the second inning when the Padres scored four times on three singles, a walk and a wild pitch. Kershaw could have limited the damage but he fumbled Bryce Johnson’s squeeze bunt, allowing a run to score and extending the inning for Jurickson Profar’s two-out RBI single.

“I gotta make that play,” Kershaw said. “That was an easy out at home right there. The bunt was right back to me. Have to make that play, and the inning’s a lot different. That’s on me. That was super easy. That was a super frustrating mistake there.”

He retired the side in the third but gave up a one-out home run to Campusano in the fourth and then singles to Johnson and Profar wrapped around an error by second baseman Gavin Lux. After Xander Bogaerts drove in the third run of the inning with a sacrifice fly, Roberts pulled Kershaw rather than have him face Manny Machado for the third time in four innings.

Four of the Padres’ runs off Kershaw were unearned, still leaving him with a 5.87 ERA after two starts. More troubling perhaps, the two lineups he has faced have batted .333 (12 for 36) against him.

“I just think it’s executing it, where it’s getting to,” Smith said. “It’s nothing concerning to me at all. It was just one of those days.”

Padres starter Dylan Cease was making his first start since pitching a no-hitter against the Washington Nationals and a three-start stretch in which he allowed a total of two hits in 22 innings. Cease was not as dominant. He only went 5⅔ innings and needed 101 pitches (only 59 strikes) to do that.

But the Dodgers managed just one run against him on an RBI double by Lux in the third inning. They struck out six times against Cease and four more times in 3⅓ hitless innings against the Padres’ bullpen.

While losing four of the first five games on this road trip (which continues in Oakland this weekend), the Dodgers’ depleted lineup has managed 31 hits while striking out 66 times.

“Those guys – Mookie, Muncy, Freddie, other guys – those are dudes. Those are dudes that help us win ballgames so it’s tough,” Smith said of the key parts missing from the Dodgers’ lineup. “We still have a really good ballclub here without those guys. We just need to play better and win some ballgames.”

Originally Published: July 31, 2024 at 8:28 p.m.