Clayton Kershaw returns, Shohei Ohtani homers, Dodgers grab series win over Giants

When Clayton Kershaw took the mound to his familiar entrance song — ”We are Young,” by Fun — for his 2024 debut on Thursday, he became the first Dodgers pitcher to play in 17 different seasons, the three-time National League Cy Young Award winner and 2014 NL most valuable player having debuted as a 20-year-old in 2008.

“Having a great season, a great first half, to be an All-Star, having a great couple seasons is one thing, but the longevity piece is something that I really admire, the consistency part, the ability to post,” manager Dave Roberts said before the game.

“For him to set another record just speaks to the character, the competitor, in Clayton Kershaw. And in all these years, he's still been dominant, even without his best stuff. So to put him on the Mount Rushmore of Dodger players, it's very fitting.”

Kershaw was hardly dominant in a 6-4 victory over the San Francisco Giants before a sun-baked crowd of 52,291 in Chavez Ravine, his first game back from shoulder surgery , which sidelined him for the first four months. Nor was he bad.

The 36-year-old left-hander was something in between, giving the Dodgers a chance to win with a four-inning, two-run, six-hit, two-walk, six-strikeout effort, and considering his age, the mileage on his left arm and the tattered state of the team’s rotation , that’s about the best the Dodgers can hope for at this point.

The Dodgers, who won six of seven on the homestand, broke a 4-4 tie in the bottom of the eighth when Nick Ahmed, the veteran shortstop who was signed on Wednesday to replace the injured Miguel Rojas , and Shohei Ohtani hit back-to-back home runs off submarine-throwing right-hander Tyler Rogers.

Ahmed drove a 2-and-2 sinker 396 feet to center field for his second homer of the season. Ohtani hit a towering drive on a first-pitch slider that he kept fair inside the right-field foul pole for his 31st homer, the ball traveling 360 feet.

Kiké Hernández paced a 14-hit Dodgers attack with an RBI single in the second, an RBI double in the fourth and a single in the fifth, Austin Barnes had two hits, including an RBI single in the fourth, and Gavin Lux walked and scored in the second, doubled and scored in the fourth and singled in the fifth.

Kershaw struck out Patrick Bailey with an 88-mph slider with two on to end the first inning. He wobbled in the third, giving up a leadoff single to Jorge Soler, an RBI triple to Tyler Fitzgerald, an RBI single to Heliot Ramos and a single by Matt Chapman, the Giants taking a 2-1 lead and threatening to blow the game open.

But Kershaw stiffened, striking out Bailey with an 87-mph slider, David Villar looking at a 73-mph curve and Thairo Estrada with an 88-mph slider, his 32nd pitch of the inning. He walked one in a scoreless fourth and was pulled with his pitch count at 72.

Kershaw’s four-seam fastball averaged 90.6 mph and topped out at 91.8 mph. He leaned heavily on his 86.6-mph slider, which he used to finish four of his six strikeouts, threw some sharp looping curves and even mixed in six changeups. He induced 14 swinging strikes.

An overpowering start it wasn’t, but it was in stark contrast to Kershaw’s last game here, when he retired one of eight batters in a six-run first inning in which he gave six hits, including three doubles and a three-run homer to Gabriel Moreno, in an 11-2 loss to Arizona in the first game of the NL Division Series last Oct. 7.

The shellacking set the tone for a series in which the 100-win Dodgers were swept by the 84-win Diamondbacks and erased the good vibes of a season in which Kershaw went 13-5 with a 2.46 ERA in 24 starts despite pitching with a sore shoulder that required surgery to repair the gleno-humeral ligaments and capsule in November.

Kershaw made three rehabilitation starts, closing with a four-inning, three-run, six-hit effort for triple-A Oklahoma City in which he threw 67 pitches on July 13 , but the Dodgers deemed him built up enough to return on Thursday.

“I’m excited, I think Dodgers Nation is excited, I know Clayton is excited,” Roberts said beforehand. “I'm sure there are some nerves with him. … Clayton has had a long road, and I'm happy to finally get to the finish line.”

That Kershaw is nearing the end of a Hall-of-Fame career and was able to return after a grueling 8 ½-month rehab process made Thursday all the more emotional for him.

“I think there was a point before the surgery, after the surgery, where he felt, ‘Is he ever going to throw another major league pitch?’ “ Roberts said. “I think over the last few years, he’s finally realized that he’s mortal, so then there comes the appreciation of every moment.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .