Today saw two of the best pitchers in baseball. The Los Angeles Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw and the Washington Nationals' Stephen Strasburg had to be pulled from games due to injury. Plus, Baltimore Orioles relief pitcher Zach Britton made American League (AL) pitching history.
Clayton Kershaw suffers lower back injury
Los Angeles Dodgers All-Star and three-time Cy Young-winning pitcher Clayton Kershaw had to be lifted from today's game because of an injury after only the second inning for a pinch hitter. The injury has been announced as tightness on the right side of his lower back.
This made today's start against the Atlanta Braves the third shortest start of Kershaw's career, with today being his 284th start.
Going into today's game the Dodgers won 14 straight Kershaw starts, the second longest streak in team history. Despite Kershaw not getting the win, as it went to Brandon Morrow, the Dodgers managed to defeat the Atlanta Braves 5-4 in the tenth inning, snapping their two-game losing streak. This victory also gave the Dodgers their 46th straight win when leading at any point in a game, the longest such streak in MLB history. Unfortunately for the team, Kershaw is expected to go on the disabled list (DL), which the team has also used an MLB-high 31 times despite having the best record in baseball at 68-31.
Strasburg also pulled after only two innings
Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg was lifted from the game against the Arizona Diamondbacks after two innings with an apparent injury. He was taken out as a precaution and will be evaluated by team doctors on Tuesday when the team returns to Washington. Out of the 51 pitches Strasburg threw only 29 of them (51%) were strikes.
This was his lowest strike percentage in a game since May 29th, 2015. Despite him leaving early, the Nationals still managed a 6-2 win over Arizona, with Joe Blanton being credited with the win. Bryce Harper also picked up a hit, extending his hit streak to 16 straight games.
Zach Britton makes AL history
Baltimore Orioles All-Star reliever Zach Britton made history in the team's 9-7 victory over the Houston Astros.
In the victory he converted his 55th straight save opportunity, breaking the AL record. It was a long wait for Britton, as this was his first game pitching since April 14th. He had been on the DL since then, returning on July 5th. He then had to wait until today to break the record, as manager Buck Showalter wanted to wait until he was ready. The previous streak of 54 straight save opportunities was set by Tom Gordon in the 1998 and 1999 seasons.
