LAD 6, SF 1: Kershaw Dominates Again

This and this. And then tonight. All Clayton Kershaw does is dominate the Giants. In fact, he has now gone 23.2 innings without giving up a run to the Giants. But you know what? Kershaw does that to a lot of teams because he's one of the best young pitchers in all of baseball. He may not have the same track record, but he is the Dodgers' Tim Lincecum. And while the Giants may not have the best offense and some may want to blame the stupid rookie Brandon Belt for not getting a hit against one of the best lefties in the game, they just had trouble against a very, very good pitcher and probably will continue to have trouble with him for the next 10 years. My god he is impressive.

Madison Bumgarner has had a weird start to the season. Last week in San Diego, Bumgarner was actually looking pretty great through the first two innings before throwing over 40 pitches in the 3rd inning. And that 3rd inning was a bit unlucky. The Padres did what the Padres always do, annoy the hell out of you with long at-bats and bloop hits, and all of a sudden Bumgarner had allowed 3 runs in 3 innings and was out of the game. Today, he was again throwing pretty well. The first run scored when after Matt Kemp walked and stole second base, James Loney hit a liner that ricocheted off Freddy Sanchez's glove, scoring Kemp. Then came the 5th inning, when Rod Barajas led off with a homer. 2-0 Dodgers. After Rafael Furcal walked and advanced to 2nd on a single from Jamey Carroll, he stole 3rd base. However, the replays showed that Furcal was clearly out, so no runner should have been on 3rd. Furcal then scored on a single, and with runners on 1st and 2nd, Matt Kemp singled to left field and the ball went right under Pat Burrell's glove all the way to the wall, scoring both runners. After looking pretty sharp through 4 innings, Bumgarner's final line was: 5 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 4 BB, 3 Ks. Kind of a bizarre start to the season for Bumgarner so far.

A loss to the Dodgers is always frustrating, especially when the offense looks completely helpless. But let's all remember that this was the 10th game of the year. There are 162 games in a season, and if you are extremely stressed and concerned after 10 games, I feel bad for you and I don't know how you ever survive a baseball season. The Giants will go on winning streaks and plenty of losing streaks as well. It's what happens. Just because they are having a rough start doesn't mean they are a bad team in need of major changes. Brandon Belt needs to be sent back to the minors after 35 major league ABs? No. Bumgarner needs to work on his stuff in the minors after 2 bad starts? Please, stop. Just stop it.