Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw Reveals What Went Wrong in 2025 Debut, Confident He Can Bounce Back

The Los Angeles Dodgers welcomed back Clayton Kershaw on Saturday night, but his long-awaited return was dampened by the Los Angeles Angels’ offense.

Kershaw’s first stat line of 2025 included four innings pitched, five hits, five earned runs, and just a pair of strikeouts to three walks. The future Hall of Famer was honest in his assessment of how the night went.

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“I think there’s some glimpses of some of my stuff being there, which is good. The problem tonight was just command. I had really bad command tonight,” Kershaw said. “I think I can fix that, which is good, which is an encouraging thing, but obviously not good enough tonight to get it done.”

Of Kershaw’s 83 pitches, 40 of them were in the strike zone, while batters swung and missed at 10 of his throws. Over the course of the outing, the Halos made contact with 26 of the southpaw’s pitches, however, fouling off 11 of his offerings.

“I left a few middle today,” Kershaw said. “I think more than anything with the slider, there’s a lot of foul balls instead of swing and misses, and so that needs to be my out pitch. That needs to be the one that gets swing and miss. And so I think I think it’s in there and just, you know, the location wasn’t great today. I left a lot of them middle.”

The future Hall of Famer had last pitched on Aug. 30, 2024, and has since been recovering from surgeries to repair his left meniscus and bone spurs in his left toe. In five rehab starts in the minor leagues, Kershaw had a 2.57 ERA over 21 innings, with 16 strikeouts to five walks.

Kershaw is now looked at as a more crucial piece in the Dodgers rotation than he was in spring training due to the injuries to so many pitchers this season. If the MVP can show more glimpses of his former self, he will be on pace for a productive rest of the campaign, and log quality innings for a team that needs his pitching prowess now more than ever.

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Photo Credit: Jonathan Hui-Imagn Images

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