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LOS ANGELES — There was a lot going on in Tuesday night’s game. Clayton Kershaw was the main story, but that ending didn’t quite go as anticipated. In the end, the Dodgers prevailed, and here are some leftover tidbits from the 2-1, 13-inning win over the Cardinals.
Dodgers batters struck out 19 times on Tuesday, second-most in franchise history. The club struck out 20 times against Cincinnati in an 11-inning win on July 28, 2013.
Four of those strikeouts came in the first four at-bats for Logan Forsythe in his first game back off the disabled list. “He told me he was ready,” manager Dave Roberts joked after the game.
Forsythe walked in the 11th inning, then delivered the walk-off double in the 13th for the win. It was just the second four-strikeout game of his career; he also did so as a Padre against Philadelphia on June 25, 2013.
Tuesday night was just the third time in 105 years the Dodgers won an extra-inning game with as few as three hits. The last time was July 5, 1994 against the Montreal Expos. The Dodgers are 3-18 (.143) in such games, dating back to 1913.
Kershaw posted a game score of 87, tied for the fourth-highest in MLB in 2017 along with Ervin Santana, who also posted a game score of 87 on Tuesday. The 87 game score was tied for the 11th-best regular season start of Kershaw’s career.
Tuesday was the 20th start of Kershaw’s career with 10 or more strikeouts and no walks, and first in 2017. Since 1913 that’s fourth-most, trailing only Randy Johnson (36), Curt Schilling (27), and Roger Clemens (21).
Also:
#Dodgers Clayton Kershaw has had more 3-0 counts this year as a batter than as a pitcher.
— MLB Statistics (@MLBRandomStats) May 24, 2017
The count is two 3-0 counts as a batter for Kershaw this year, and one as a pitcher. The opposing batter to receive the 3-0 count was Giants catcher Nick Hundley on May 17. In the sixth inning he got ahead 3-0, then singled on the seventh pitch of the at-bat.
Lance Lynn was great in his own right, allowing just one run in eight innings, with 10 strikeouts for the Cardinals. Tuesday night was the 11th regular season game in Dodger Stadium history that saw both starting pitchers record double-digit strikeouts. The last such game was May 25, 2016, an epic duel between Scott Kazmir and Dan Straily.
While Tuesday’s game was the Dodgers’ longest of the season by innings, two more than any other game in 2017, at four hours and five minutes it was still six minutes shorter than their 8-2, nine-inning win over the Padres in San Diego on May 5.