LOS ANGELES _ Trevor Richards was so awed by Dodger Stadium that he stood alone on the top step of the dugout and took snapshots of the empty diamond as if he was some tourist. And why not? The small-town pitcher the Marlins discovered purely by accident said it was his first time he had pitched west of Oklahoma and that Dodger Stadium felt like some baseball mecca.
"It's kind of cool, older than I thought," Richards said then.
That was Monday, and Richards was a long way from his southern Illinois hometown of Aviston, where only three months ago he was working as a substitute teacher at the local elementary school, and where the students celebrated and chanted "Marlins!" when word spread he had received a spring training invitation.
On Wednesday, standing on the same mound he had photographed two days earlier, the soft-spoken pitcher was the star of La La Land.
The 24-year-old feel-good story of an otherwise dismal Marlins season turned in a performance for the ages, shutting down the Dodgers and outdueling Clayton Kershaw, perhaps the greatest pitcher of his generation, in an 8-6 victory that closed out the road trip.
J.T. Realmuto crushed two home runs and the Marlins won back-to-back games for the first time all season to give them their first series win.
But Richards was the story.
Richards not only out-shined the Dodgers' ace, he dominated him.
Richards struck out 10, gave up just one hit _ a Kershaw single _ and came within one out of qualifying for his first Major League win. Manager Don Mattingly removed Richards with two outs in the fifth after the pitcher had thrown 100 pitches, including 31 in the fifth inning alone.
Kershaw, meanwhile, turned in one of the poorest and most perplexing outings of his outstanding career. Kershaw entered the game on a streak of 26 consecutive innings without issuing a walk. But in only five laborious innings on Wednesday, he walked six, tying a career high he set way back in 2010. He also gave up five hits, including a three-run homer to Miguel Rojas in the fifth. Rojas' home run, which broke a scoreless tie, clanged off the top of the foul pole in left, leaving Dodger Stadium in a state of shock.
Realmuto clubbed a home run in the sixth and added another in the eighth to double his season total.
While Richards was unsuccessful in recording his first big-league win, reliever Merandy Gonzalez pocketed his very first after taking over for Richards and working three innings, giving up three runs.
