Clayton Kershaw against the Mets went as expected

It took nine innings for the Dodgers to officially secure their win over the Mets, but unofficially they only needed one as Los Angeles won 5-0 in Tuesday night’s contest.

In the first inning, Brandon Nimmo led off the game with a three-base error that bounced off the glove of a stumbling and crawling Jason Heyward, but Nimmo, like every other Mets batter, would not score against Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers as the 199-game winner struck out the next three batters in order.

In the bottom half of the first inning, 11-game winner Tylor Megill allowed a single to Freddie Freeman and immediately allowed a home run to J.D. Martinez, putting the Mets behind 2-0 and giving the Dodgers the lead they would never surrender as they handed the Mets their seventh loss of the season.

Between J.D. Martinez’s first home run and Megill’s final pitch of the night, the only other run scored came in the third inning on, you guessed it, a J.D. Martinez home run. Not to say Tylor Megill didn’t have his share of spooks and scares along the way as he gave up seven hits and four walks in five innings, but all three of his runs allowed came on two swings.

The Mets would make one more credible threat against Kershaw, in the seventh inning, as Mark Canha and Jeff McNeil both singled with two outs to put runners on the corners, but on his 105th pitch of the night, Kershaw struck out Tommy Pham, let out a rare show of emotion, and returned to the dugout to blow kisses to his children. In seven innings of work, Kershaw gave up no runs on three hits and struck out nine Mets, lowering his career ERA against them to 2.03, and giving Kershaw his 200th win as a major leaguer.

Denyi Reyes and a debuting Jeff Brigham combined to throw two scoreless innings, but the Dodgers would score two more runs in the eighth inning against John Curtiss on a Freddie Freeman sac fly and a J.D. Martinez RBI single, though it wouldn’t matter for much other than putting the game out of save range. The Mets went down in the ninth inning in the same way they had almost every inning since the first pitch: quietly.

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What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Brandon Nimmo, +6.4% WPA
Big Mets loser: Tylor Megill, -14.1% WPA
Mets pitchers: -13.4% WPA
Mets hitters: -36.6% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Brandon Nimmo’s first inning three-base error, +9.2% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: J.D. Martinez’s first inning homer, -17.7% WPA