Clayton Kershaw nears club record, Cody Bellinger homers twice as Dodgers rout Padres

Clayton Kershaw quietly continued his march towards membership historical past.

Cody Bellinger emphatically prolonged his return to tantalizing kind.

Collectively, the 2 former MVPs led the Dodgers to a 10-2 win towards the San Diego Padres on Sunday, with Kershaw pitching 5 innings of one-run ball — he collected three strikeouts to maneuver to inside 4 of breaking Don Sutton’s franchise file — and Bellinger hitting two residence runs within the rubber-match rout at Petco Park.

“Total, it was an awesome day for us,” Kershaw stated. “That’s how the machine works. It’s fairly cool to see.”

All eyes have been on Kershaw to start the afternoon.

With 2,690 profession strikeouts getting into the sport, the left-hander was inside attain of breaking Sutton’s four-decades-old mark.

“Selfishly, I might need to see him do it right this moment,” supervisor Dave Roberts stated pregame. “As a result of if he punches out seven, then that’s a very good factor for the Dodgers right this moment.”

Even with out a lot swing-and-miss, although, Kershaw was nonetheless efficient.

He positioned his fastball nicely and induced principally mushy contact. All 4 of the hits he gave up have been singles. And throughout the Padres’ largest risk within the fourth inning, when San Diego bought an RBI single from Wil Myers and had runners on the corners with two outs, Kershaw ended the inning by fanning Jorge Alfaro — his third and last strikeout of the day.

Kershaw stated he wasn’t targeted on making an attempt to achieve Sutton’s mark Sunday however is aware of how shut he’s to his subsequent profession milestone.

“I’ve by no means actually tried to consider strikeouts,” Kershaw stated. “However it’s one thing particular and hopefully I do it in some unspecified time in the future this yr.”

His subsequent scheduled alternative: Saturday at Dodger Stadium, when he can have the possibility to interrupt the file in entrance of a house crowd towards the Detroit Tigers.

“We bought to have our cake and eat it,” Roberts stated. “We gained a recreation, he threw the ball nicely and we’ve bought the chance to see him break Sutton’s file at residence.”

Whereas Kershaw cruised, the Dodgers’ offense dominated.

Regardless of getting into the sport with MLB’s second-worst crew on-base plus slugging (OPS) towards left-handed pitching this season, the Dodgers roughed up Padres southpaw Sean Manaea.

They opened the scoring within the first on a Justin Turner sacrifice fly that scored Mookie Betts, who bounced again from an 0-for-5 efficiency Saturday by reaching base 3 times and scoring three runs.

The Dodgers took a 3-0 lead on Freddie Freeman’s two-run blast within the third.

After rounding the bases to chants of “Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie!” from the Dodgers heavy contingent of visiting followers — Freeman stated it was the primary time his identify had been chanted in an opposing ballpark — the primary baseman celebrated by high-fiving his dad, who was seated subsequent to the Dodgers dugout.

“I instructed Doc, ‘Man, I gotta actually play nicely right this moment or my dad’s gonna be mad at me,’ ” Freeman joked postgame. “It’s simply good to have him there and have the ability to share that second.”

Then Bellinger delivered the knockout blows, hammering a solo residence run to heart subject within the fourth and a three-run blast to right-center within the fifth.

It was Bellinger’s 14th profession multi-home run recreation, essentially the most in Dodgers historical past by a 26-year-old, in response to ESPN.

It was his seventh multihit recreation this season, elevating his early season batting common to .273 and OPS to .915 — each huge enhancements from final yr, when the middle fielder set profession lows throughout the board whereas battling accidents.

And on his approach again to the dugout following the second blast — his team-leading fourth of the season — it was Bellinger’s flip to be serenaded by the swaths of blue-clad followers.

Their chant for him: “MVP! MVP!”

“Clearly, it’s a special sort of grind once you’ve achieved issues your entire life and it’s simply not understanding,” Bellinger stated of his turnaround up to now this season. “It’s a must to modify, simply return to the fundamentals, and [now I’m] feeling good and simply persevering with to journey out the wave, journey out the season.”