Kershaw: 'I probably should pitch better'

If there were positives to be gleaned from his performance Monday against the lowly Philadelphia Phillies, who saddled him with his second loss in his last three starts, Clayton Kershaw, the increasingly frustrated Los Angeles Dodgers ace, wasn't seeing them.

"No progress," Kershaw told reporters, according to MLB.com's Ken Gurnick, following his club's 4-3 defeat at Citizens Bank Park. "We had the lead, I blew it, and we lost. Not a lot of progress to be had. Go back to the drawing board and get ready for the next one."

(His start didn't go the way he wanted, but Kershaw's economical game recap would bring tears of joy to any copy editor.)

Staked to a 2-0 lead two batters into the game, Kershaw toyed with the Phillies for five scoreless frames before his evening unraveled in the sixth. A leadoff walk to Ty Kelly. A one-out single from Freddy Galvis that put runners on the corners. Another walk, to the mighty Rhys Hoskins, to load the bases. Then, the unlikeliest of events: a grand slam from Aaron Altherr, the first Kershaw has allowed since debuting with the Dodgers in 2008. That was it. The Phillies hung on for the win, their first against Los Angeles this year.

"It was a surprise to all of us," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the slam. "When there is traffic or stress, he always finds a way to get the strikeout or ground ball."

This time, though, he didn't, saddling Kershaw with his fourth loss of the season. Since returning from the disabled list Sept. 1, the three-time Cy Young award winner has been uncharacteristically inconsistent, authoring two excellent starts and two unimpressive ones en route to a 3.74 ERA over 21 2/3 innings. In 21 starts before his back started bothering him, leading to a six-week stint on the disabled list, he crafted a 2.04 ERA with a 7:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

To that end, Kershaw offered up this blunt self-evaluation.

"Not great, I guess," he said of his last four starts. "A few bad ones. I probably should pitch better."

Roberts, for what it's worth, is confident he will.

"I think it's right where you would expect," he said of Kershaw's recent performance. "As we look forward to the postseason, he's going to be where he wants to be. He's at four (starts) and he's trending the right way."