July 23rd 2015 -- Dodgers 3, Mets 0

Thursday night at Citi Field, Clayton Kershaw was nearly perfect, he wasn’t but he was good enough to out duel Bartolo Colon and the Mets 3-0.  It was a great pitcher’s duel in Flushing.  Kershaw was perfect through 6.  He was staked to a 1-0 lead in the 3^rd when Jimmy Rollins put the only blotch on Colon’s pitching line with a solo homer, for Rollins homer # 9 on the year.  In the top of the 7^th Curtis Granderson broke up the perfect game quest with a line single to right.  The Mets got 2 batters on in the inning when Flores singled as well, but Kershaw worked out of it.  Lucas Duda led off the 8^th with a single but then was caught stealing to take the wind out of the Met’s sails.  Colon was nearly as good going 8 allowing 5 hits the 1 run (earned) and struck out 4. He’s the hard luck loser falling to 9-9 on the campaign.  Sean Gilmartin had a shaky top of the 9^th loading the bases with no outs on singles by Joc Pederson, Justin Turner and Adrian Gonzalez.  Carlos Torres came on and walked Alberto Callaspo on  4 pitches to make it 2-0.  Yasiel Puig hit a sac-fly to make it 3-0. The Mets only managed the 3 hits and never posed a serious threat against last year MVP.  With the shutout Kershaw improves to 8-6 while going the distance and striking out 11.  The Mets have dropped two straight and now stand at 49-47 and 32-15 at home.  The Bucks are beating the Nats so it looks like the Mets will stay 3 games out of first in the NL East.  Friday night the red hot Jonathon Niese (5-8 3.36) takes the mound.  In Niese’s’ last three starts he’s 2-0 with a 1.21 ERA. The Dodger starter is TBD.