Grateful Clayton Kershaw goes 4 innings in return to Dodgers - ESPN

LOS ANGELES — Anticipation consumed the better part of his past eight months and excitement colored the better part of his past few days. Then, in the third inning of his first start back at Dodger Stadium on Thursday, Clayton Kershaw encountered a sobering reality: two runs on the scoreboard, two runners on base, nobody out.

It triggered a familiar feeling: survival.

«There's some part of it,» Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, «where you just default to having gone through that — and it's not about your first start back, it's not about how you feel. It's about getting an out and getting out of that inning and minimizing damage. People that have been in those kinds of battles have that to fall back on. That was his only thought in that moment.»

Kershaw came back to record three consecutive strikeouts, limiting damage, setting the stage for another Dodgers victory — this one by a 6-4 score over the division rival San Francisco Giants — and providing an encouraging sign in his return from shoulder surgery.

Kershaw limited the Giants to just the two runs in a four-inning, 72-pitch outing that saw him scatter six hits and walk three batters. It was an unremarkable pitching line, marred, in Kershaw's mind, by lacking fastball command. But that third-inning sequence showed that the Kershaw the Dodgers have known over these past few years — the one who can dominate mostly with a fastball-slider combination that rarely exceeds 90 mph — is still in there.

«He's the same, honestly — from the start of the game to the end of the game,» Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes said. «I think that's one of his better traits. He doesn't let off the gas. He's the same guy. He keeps coming at you.»

Kershaw at times had a difficult time getting his