No Need To Worry About Clayton Kershaw

In case you missed it, and if you don’t have Time Warner cable you probably did. Clayton Kershaw had a bad day yesterday in the Dodger’s Cactus league opener at Salt River Fields. Oh don’t worry, he’s fine, but his control was a bit off in the Dodger’s 4-1 loss to the Snakes.

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

It’s not uncommon for even the best pitchers to have poor outings in exhibition games. Most pitchers are working on specifics in spring training outings. For instance Kershaw was working on his fastball yesterday afternoon.

We’ve heard that Kershaw is developing a killer changeup, but we didn’t see that yesterday. Kersh threw two frames in the opening spring game, allowing three runs on five hits, with one walk, and two strikeouts. Afterwards, Kershaw retired to the bullpen to get in some more work. It seemed as if his command was a bit off in yesterday’s loss. He wasn’t hitting his spots.

If you look at the breakdown you’ll see that Kershaw was indeed just focusing on throwing his fastball. Check out the number of pitches Kershaw threw, and how many of each pitch type.

Kershaw’s pitches thrown

Pitches-42

Strikes-27

Balls-15

Fastballs-31

Sliders-6

Curveballs-5

Kershaw threw 42 pitches, and of those 42, 31 were fastballs. Nothing unusual to report there. Next outing it may be the slider, or it may be just building up arm strength or whatever. The results of these games don’t count, so there is no point to not experiment. Whatever the case, there is no reason to be concerned at all with Kershaw’s shaky first outing this spring. So if you were at all worried, put your mind at ease. After all this is Clayton Kershaw we’re talking about. I think he’ll be just fine.