Clayton Kershaw loses his mind, slams ball into ground then fires it into dugout
With an MVP award, three Cy Youngs and five All-Star game appearances to his name, it’s no surprise that Clayton Kershaw holds himself to a high standard.
We saw just how hard he can be on himself, especially when he’s a little annoyed, during a dramatic sequence of events Tuesday night in Oakland.
Thinking he’d struck out Athletics batter Danny Valencia with a pitch he felt was on the outside corner to end the third inning, Kershaw, already on his way back to the dugout, was dismayed when home plate umpire Todd Tichenor called it a ball.
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The inning continued and Valencia hit the next pitch he saw weakly on the ground toward third base. Kershaw came off the mound and tried to make a play on the ball. The operative word there being tried. Kershaw chased after the bouncing ball, but it remained just out of his grasp and Valencia reached first with an infield single.
Frustrated with everything that had just transpired, Kershaw lost his cool. First, he slammed the ball into the ground. Then, after taking a few seconds to try and collect his emotions, he fired it over into the Dodgers’ dugout for good measure. He undoubtedly had to feel better after that.
There’s a reason Kershaw was more ticked off than usual, besides feeling that the ump was squeezing the strike zone: he’s usually pretty handy with the glove. Check out this nifty play he made earlier in the game on a comebacker hit by Eric Sogard:
So how’d Kershaw do after his mini meltdown anyway? He struck out the next batter he faced and followed that up with four shutout innings, allowing just two hits and one walk and leaving the game in the seventh after giving up only one earned run. Did you expect anything else? The Dodgers wasted his sparkling outing though, falling to the A’s 5-4 in extras.
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Kershaw has been on fire lately and he has firmly placed himself in the discussion to take home the NL Cy Young again this year. As we saw Tuesday, it’s all right if he’s a little fired up too. Channeling his inner Hulk, opposing hitters still won’t like to face him when he’s angry.
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Israel Fehr is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter. Follow @israelfehr
