LOS ANGELES _ For less than a second, the crowd at Dodger Stadium paused. A collective soft gasp sounded, but before the second was over, the apprehension turned to elation and the gasp morphed into shrieks of joy as the ball off Clayton Kershaw's bat trickled into left field.
The tapper was Kershaw's first hit since April 23, and it drove in his first run of 2018. The Los Angeles Dodgers needed it _ and every other run they could manage _ to secure a 5-3 series-clinching win over the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday afternoon.
Gasping of a different nature hushed the stadium an inning and a half later, when Angels first baseman Jefry Marte lofted a 92-mph Kershaw fastball toward the left-center field wall. Andrew Toles backed up, shuffled his feet in warning track pebbles and jumped. When he came down, it was unclear whether he'd made the catch. Then the ball peaked above the horizon after bouncing behind the wall. Boos rained.
Marte's homer tied the score at 3-3 and was one moment of bliss on an otherwise frustrating afternoon for the Angels. Marte epitomized that frustration when he split his bat over his knee following a first-inning strikeout that left the bases loaded.
So did Justin Upton, who struck out with a runner on third to end the fifth inning. He raised his bat over his head, like he was about to slam the ground, but tossed it instead.
Aside from his rough first inning, during which Kershaw surrendered a double and two walks, he settled down until Marte's home run. And from there, he settled again.
He exited after 6 2/3 innings, having given up six hits and three runs. He struck out eight and walked four in his first no-decision performance since June 28. He'd won his previous two starts.
Kenta Maeda relieved Kershaw and drilled Upton on his first pitch of the game to load the bases for Ian Kinsler. Maeda struck him out to end the threat, which prompted Kinsler to raise his bat like Upton. He also tossed it, along with his helmet, toward the dugout and trudged toward second base.
It was the last time the Angels threatened.
Deck McGuire's day, meanwhile, was shorter than Kershaw's. He lasted three innings and allowed three runs on four hits and 64 pitches before Noe Ramirez took over.
Ramirez didn't allow a baserunner in his two innings, and he reversed the frustration when he struck out Dodgers All-Star outfielder Matt Kemp to end the fifth inning. Kemp halved his bat, just like Marte, only Kemp's pine splitting was audible, like the crack of a twig.
Again, Dodger Stadium's 47,871 fans gasped. They didn't gasp again until the bottom of the seventh, when Enrique Hernandez lined an 84-mph slider from Taylor Cole into the left-field stands for a solo home run and a 4-3 Dodgers lead. Just like Yasmani Grandal's homer earlier in the game, it found the sliver of seats between the bullpen and the foul pole, only his was to left field while Grandal's was to right.
Hernandez also drove in Toles on a sacrifice fly in the second inning, right before Kershaw added to the early lead with his single.
Toles added some insurance in the bottom of the eighth by grounding a ball to the vacant left side of the infield to beat the shift and drive in Cody Bellinger.
The last gasp of Sunday's game arrived between the eighth and ninth innings when Tupac Shakur's "California Love" blasted from the speakers, signaling the entrance of All-Star closer Kenley Jansen.
The gasps transitioned to applause as Jansen prepared to rebound from Saturday's game, when he allowed a game-winning home run to the Angels' Kole Calhoun and took the loss.
It didn't take him long to signal that Sunday would be different.
He struck out pinch-hitter Shohei Ohtani with three straight cutters, then forced David Fletcher to fly out to right on a sliding grab from Hernandez. Andrelton Simmons grounded out to third base for the final out.
The Dodgers (53-43) enter the All-Star break with a half-game lead over Arizona (53-44) for first place in the National League West. The Angels (49-48) are in fourth in the American League West, 14 games behind first-place Houston.
