Landen Roupp emerging as unsung hero of Giants' staff after another stong start originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants have had seven pitchers make multiple starts for them this season, and it’s pretty safe to say that Landen Roupp has found himself in the fewest number of headlines and social media posts. 

Logan Webb and Robbie Ray are the MLB All-Stars, and while Justin Verlander is winless, his hard-luck pursuit of 300 wins has made him a national story at times. Hayden Birdsong is the hard-throwing prospect who took a trip through the bullpen early on and lately has tried to figure out where his command has gone. Kyle Harrison surprisingly started the year in Triple-A and then became the centerpiece of the Rafael Devers trade. Jordan Hicks also ended up in Boston, and before that, it seemed like every start led to plenty of questions about whether he would get another one. 

And then there’s Roupp, who has taken the ball every five days and given the Giants five strong innings more often than not. With one run over five in Monday’s 3-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies, the right-hander lowered his ERA to 3.39. If the postseason started today, the Giants would be the National League’s third Wild Card team — and Roupp would be a pretty easy selection to start Game 3 behind Webb and Ray.

Roupp is 1 2/3 innings shy of qualifying for leaderboards, but if he did, he would rank 15th in the NL in ERA. At home, he has been even better, posting a 1.85 ERA that ranks fifth in the league. 

Just about everything about Roupp’s season has been positive, but it’s hard to ignore the number that’s hanging over it all, one that leads to some natural questions about whether he would be ready for an October start. 

At 90 1/3 innings, Roupp is already well past his 2024 total (76 2/3 across three levels). He’s on pace for about 160 innings, which would be a remarkable year-over-year jump, especially in today’s game, but it’s not something he’s at all concerned about. 

“There’s been no talks about an innings limit or anything like that,” he said. “For me, it’s just about keep competing and get the work done in the training room to go out there every fifth day and go at least five. I feel good, I feel strong, and I expect to be pitching in the playoffs.”

If the Giants get there and Roupp is ready for whatever they need, it’ll be in part because of the trust that pitching coach J.P. Martinez has in the 26-year-old. The staff made Roupp the surprise fifth starter coming out of camp, and Martinez doesn’t see any need to scale things back. On a recent episode of “Giants Talk,” he talked of how Roupp has a “super strong lower half” and a “measured delivery” that never looks out of control. He’s physically built for a heavy workload, and his starts rarely look stressful. 

“If he’s feeling good physically and he’s pitching really well, I don’t have too much of a concern of putting a cap on him or putting a ceiling on him,” Martinez said. “I think the limits are limits until you kind of break them, and I think this is a chance for him to have a breakout season, so I’m not too concerned about putting the governor on him just yet.”

Roupp made just 32 starts in the minor leagues and spent most of last season in the bullpen, but he took on a heavy workload at UNC Wilmington, throwing 101 innings in his final season and then 107 1 /3 at three levels in his first season as a professional. This is something he has done before, and the muscle memory hasn’t gone away. 

But he also has some new tricks. 

Roupp said he spoke to perennial NL innings leader Logan Webb earlier this year and adjusted his between-starts routine. Traditionally, Roupp would play catch the day after a start, but Webb told him to keep it simple.

“He’s like, ‘Do nothing the next day,'” Roupp said. “So I do nothing. That’s kind of what he does and what he instilled into me is to take a full day.”

Roupp will get a massage Tuesday and maybe some treatment, and for the most part, the goal the next day is to relax and let his body reset for 24 hours. So far, the adjustments are working. 

Roupp allowed just one run over five innings Monday, and it came after a grounder took a weird hop on Wilmer Flores and turned into a double. He allowed four hits and struck out three, twice getting All-Star Kyle Schwarber while showing how far he has come since this time last year. 

In the first inning, Schwarber took a sinker and curveball for called strikes. When Roupp went out of the zone with an elevated cutter, Schwarber couldn’t hold up. In the third, Roupp again dropped a curve for a strike before getting ahead with another sinker. A diving changeup ended the at-bat and inning, stranding a runner. 

“I think the changeup is what has helped me get through lineups and helped me all year,” he said. “I’ve got to work on the cutter a little bit but I’m still learning each and every game and I expect to keep getting better.”

The Giants desperately need that to continue in the second half. Their rotation depth is all of a sudden not as strong as they expected, and the next man up — Harrison — is across the country. They look like a team that might need an arm at the deadline, but it won’t be for Roupp’s spot. At the end of the longest first half of his life, he isn’t slowing down. 

“He just had great energy out there,” manager Bob Melvin said Monday night. “It just felt like it was kind of early in the season energy, not you’re coming down to the (end of) the half and you’ve got some innings under your belt. A lot of times you kind of hit a little bit of a wall and you’re looking forward to the break, but man, it looked like it was early in the season for him. It’s obviously a tough lineup to navigate and they made him throw some pitches and got him out after five, but the last three times out, he’s been really good.”

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Travis d’Arnaud knows Jacob deGrom better than any other catcher in baseball. He caught the hard-throwing right-hander 60 times when they played together with the New York Mets, the most frequent backstop the former Cy Young Award winner has thrown to in his career.

That familiarity did d’Arnaud and the Angels well en route to their 6-5 victory over the Rangers (44-47) on Monday night, in which Nolan Schanuel walked off their American League West foes in the ninth inning by drawing a bases-loaded, RBI walk.

The veteran catcher ambushed deGrom in the second inning for a two-run home run, just hitting the ball hard enough — 97.4 mph — over the left-field wall.

D’Arnaud’s home run broke deGrom’s Rangers franchise-record streak of 14 consecutive starts with two or fewer runs given up — and provided the Angels (44-46) with an early 3-2 lead.

“Getting lucky to hit a homer against any Cy Young winner is really special,” said d’Arnaud, who went 2-for-4 with three RBI.

Later, with deGrom in line for the win, d’Arnaud tied the score during a two-out rally in the sixth against relief pitcher Shawn Armstrong, lining a double to deep left-center field to score Luis Rengifo, who reached base on a single.

“We were in every game right till the end, in every single game in Toronto, and so it showed we were still going to fight to the last out,” d’Arnaud said, when asked about not being able to come through as a team with three, one-run losses against the Blue Jays, “and today we were able to prevail, which is a huge step for us.”

A batter later, pinch-hitter LaMonte Wade Jr. channeled the “Throwback Week” theme at Angel Stadium, reverting to the clutch hitting that earned him the nickname “Late Night LaMonte” in San Francisco. The 31-year-old, wearing the '70s-style Angels uniform, singled to center to give the Angels a 5-4 lead.

Interim manager Ray Montgomery, who was ejected in the seventh innings arguing balls and strikes after Mike Trout looked at an inning-ending strike three call, said Wade waited for his opportunity to make an impact — even with limited at-bats after Jorge Soler’s return from injury creating a log jam in the outfield.

“Anytime off the bench you can get some sort of feeling and get some reps, it’s good, and you hope it carries over,” said Montgomery, who watched the remainder of the game from the clubhouse. “Huge at-bat by him.”

Read more:The Angels have used only five starting pitchers this season. Why that's significant

DeGrom didn’t flex the ace-caliber stuff he often tests foes with. On Monday, he gave up three earned runs and five hits across five innings, striking out five and walking two.

Yusei Kikuchi, coming off Sunday’s announcement that he earned an All-Star berth (his second of his career), didn’t live up to the pitcher’s duel billing either. The Japanese southpaw labored through an almost-20 minute first inning — in which he gave up a two-run home run to Corey Seager — and never settled down during his five innings.

“I didn't have my best stuff, but the team really picked me up today,” Kikuchi said in Japanese through an interpreter.

Before d’Arnaud’s tying double, Kikuchi was bound to be the losing pitcher, giving up four runs on six hits, struggling to accrue the same strikeout success he’d achieved as of late. He struck out just four, tied for the second-fewest he’d tallied in 2025 and the first time he’d done so since late May against the Yankees.

But none of that mattered when Schanuel came to the plate with the bases loaded, after Zach Neto was intentionally walked, washing away an 0-for-4 night with his walk-off walk.

“I didn't need a hit,” Schanuel said. “I put my pride aside.”

Reliever R&R

The Angels placed veteran right-handed relief pitcher Hunter Strickland on the 15-day injured list with right-shoulder inflammation on Monday afternoon. Strickland, who had pitched 22 innings in 19 games to the tune of a 3.27 earned-run average for the Angels, said he felt his arm get stiff before pitching against the Blue Jays on Sunday.

During his outing, in which Strickland struck out one batter in a scoreless inning, the 36-year-old said the stiff sensation in his arm got worse, causing the IL stint. Cuban righty Víctor Mederos was called up from triple-A Salt Lake City in his place.

Read more:Angels' Ron Washington will remain on medical leave for rest of season

“We're just hoping for the best and see what they say,” Strickland said, adding that he will get an MRI on Tuesday.

Robert Stephenson (stretched nerve in right bicep) said he began throwing again on Monday — soft toss — after soft-tissue recovery helped “fully heal” the nerve.

“I don't think it's gonna be a quick process, but at least I can start building up,” said Stephenson, who is in the second year of a three-year, $33 million contract with the Angels.

Stephenson has thrown just one inning as a member of the Angels, hurting himself in his second appearance back from Tommy John surgery on May 30.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto was one pitch away from a clean first inning Monday night.

Instead, it devolved into a sudden, unstoppable nightmare.

In the shortest start of his MLB career, and in an outing that somehow rivaled his disastrous debut in the majors last March in South Korea, Yamamoto missed one chance after the next to escape the bottom of the first against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field — an inning which poor defense, questionable pitch calling and bad batted ball luck all also contributed to his 41-pitch collapse.

By the time it was all over, the Brewers were leading by five runs, manager Dave Roberts was summoning a reliever just two outs into the game, and the Dodgers were well on their way to a fourth consecutive defeat, never coming close to a comeback in a 9-1 loss to open a six-game road trip.

Read more:How Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto 'elevated his game to another level' in his second year

“This is a time,” Roberts said afterward, as the Dodgers matched their longest losing streak of the season, “for us to kind of look at ourselves and be better.”

They certainly won’t want to look back on what transpired in the first inning Monday night.

Sal Frelick hammered a hanging curveball for a leadoff double. William Contreras drew a walk when Yamamoto couldn’t locate his splitter near the zone. And the two outs that followed — a fly ball from Jackson Chourio and grounder from Christian Yelich — proved to be only a temporary reprieve.

The pivotal moment came during the next at-bat when newly acquired Brewers slugger Andrew Vaughn came to the plate in his first game with the team. He got three straight sliders from Yamamoto to start, fanning on the first before laying off two that missed the zone next. Then, after a called strike on a fastball at the knees evened the count 2-and-2, catcher Will Smith dialed up another curveball from Yamamoto.

“I think we went to the well one too many times with the slider,” Roberts said, later adding: “He hits in-zone spin really well, medium-speed. And he sees four of them in an at-bat.”

Yamamoto’s execution of the pitch didn’t help.

What was supposed to be down and on the outside corner instead fluttered up and above the zone. What could have been a whiff to end the inning instead ended with Vaughn connecting on a mighty upper-cut swing. And what had been a scoreless early ballgame suddenly became a 3-0 Brewers lead, with Vaughn going deep to left to christen his Brewers debut with a home run.

“I think the [first] three sliders I threw were located pretty good,” Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “But that last one, I elevated it. It got away from me.”

Somehow, the inning would only get worse from there.

Read more:'Really impressed.' Shohei Ohtani's return to two-way role going (mostly) well a month in

Despite entering the night coming off a first-career All-Star selection, and leading the majors in road ERA at 1.57, Yamamoto failed to settle down.

In a 1-and-2 count against Isaac Collins, he left a fastball down the middle that was hammered for a single. After falling behind 3-and-0 to Brice Turang, Yamamoto worked the count full only to miss badly with a fastball and issue an inning-extending walk. Suddenly, his pitch count was climbing out of control. And with the Dodgers stuck on two outs in the inning, Roberts began to get the bullpen to stir.

“My tempo wasn’t really good, I couldn’t get my rhythm,” said Yamamoto, whose overall ERA on the season rose to 2.77. “That was on me.”

Yamamoto appeared to finally find an escape route against Caleb Durbin, inducing a grounder with a splitter that was hit straight to shortstop Mookie Betts. But, in a rare defensive lapse at his new position, Betts spiked a throw to first that Freddie Freeman couldn’t corral. Collins came racing around from second to score. The inning stayed alive when it once again should’ve ended.

Read more:Clayton Kershaw grateful for ‘weird but cool’ All-Star selection as ‘Legend Pick’

“I can't make an error right there,” said Betts, who has had a couple misplays in recent weeks after making just one error in a 61-game stretch from mid-April to late June. “Regardless of the situation, I need to make that play."

Yamamoto’s leash finally ran out on pitch 41, when Andruw Monasterio lobbed a bloop RBI single down the right-field line in the next at-bat. As another run scored, Roberts came walking out of the dugout to give the team’s season-long ace an unimaginably early hook.

“He’s usually pretty good about finding his way out of it, or minimizing some damage to kind of reset and get back out there and give us a little bit more length,” Roberts said of Yamamoto. “But today it just didn’t happen.”

The two teams played the final eight innings. But the result already seemed well in hand.

The Dodgers’ lineup was shorthanded, missing Teoscar Hernández with a bruised foot and Tommy Edman with a pinky toe fracture (both are expected back in the lineup by Wednesday). Before the game, Kiké Hernández was also put on the injured list with an elbow injury that had been bothering him since he made an awkward slide in Cleveland in late May, and flared up to the point of requiring a cortisone shot this past weekend. Not to be forgotten, Max Muncy also remains sidelined by his bum knee.

In their places the Dodgers started James Outman in center field (who was called up from triple A pregame), Miguel Rojas at third base and Hyeseong Kim at second against Brewers All-Star right-hander Freddy Peralta.

The outcome was predictable: Six innings of shutout ball in which the Dodgers managed only five hits, one walk and struck out seven times.

“We got to pitch better, we got to defend better, we got to take more competitive at-bats,” Roberts said. “And we’re just not doing any of those things right now.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Craziness, good and bad all rolled into Phillies loss to Giants originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

SAN FRANCISCO – On a typically chilly summer night in the Bay Area, it was hoped that there wouldn’t be much action going on in the Phillies bullpen. Not that the work wouldn’t have kept the relievers warm, with Taijuan Walker once again thrusting into the starter’s role for Tuesday’s game in which he will see limited innings.

With snubbed All-Star Cristopher Sánchez on the mound, that didn’t appear to be an imminent problem against the San Francisco Giants on Monday. But when Sánchez was already at 59 thrown pitches through three innings, and had to continuously work out of precarious situations, many had to wonder what the immediate future may hold for the pitching staff.

In a game filled with defensive miscues, a ball careening off an infield cutout for a double, a run-saving ground-rule double, a run scoring on a wild pitch and a bunch of umpire missed calls, Sánchez pushed all that aside and settled in for a gutty, grinding and outstanding performance through seven innings. Erratic pitching from Orion Kerkering and very questionable calls from the home plate umpire led to a 3-1 loss for the Phillies in the opener of a six-game road trip.

“In the second inning, where they loaded the bases, he did a great job getting out of that with just one run,” said manager Rob Thomson. “Just getting behind guys early. I thought he was really good and battled through a couple of rough jams and I didn’t think there were that many balls hit hard off him. He got a lot of swings and misses, a lot of soft contact, ground balls. I thought he did a great job getting through seven.”

Sánchez allowed just one run in the second, though he gave up consecutive singles and a walk to begin the inning. A strikeout, a run-scoring fielders’ choice and a groundout ended what could have been worse.

Then in the third, a fly ball to short right with one out somehow landed between an incoming Nick Castellanos and an outgoing Bryson Stott. An out later, Matt Chapman hit a rocket to center that turned Brandon Marsh around twice before bouncing over the shortest part of the outfield wall for a ground-rule double. With runners on second and third, Sánchez struck out Wilmer Flores to end that threat. 

From there he settled into the form that should have been All-Star rewarded, retiring 12 of the next 15 batters he faced, racking up 105 pitches and saving strain on a bullpen that will almost certainly have just that on Tuesday.

But the Phillies offense couldn’t reward him with much support, as the lone run they scraped across came when Bryson Stott led off the inning with a double, moved to third on a ground out and scored on a wild pitch by starter Landen Roupp. 

“I think it went well,” said Sánchez. “I was sticking to the plan that we had to attack hitters early on. It was teamwork with J.T. (Realmuto) tonight, too. That motivates me a lot (not being named to All-Star team). We might not be going through our best stretch hitting right now so that motivates me a lot too, to have my team’s back and hold on and throw as many scoreless innings as I can to get games close and give our team a chance to win.” 

Adding to the strangeness of the night were two horribly called strikes on Bryce Harper by home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi. The first came with a man on in the fifth on a ball clearly above the strike zone. The second on an 0-1 pitch in the eighth with a runner on and no outs. That totally changed Harper’s approach and led to a ground out to the pitcher.

Then Kerkering, after hitting leadoff batter Willy Adames, appeared to strikeout Matt Chapman not once but twice on pitches clearly in the zone, but Cuzzi saw otherwise, setting up the winning half inning where the Giants scored twice with just one ball leaving the infield, courtesy of a pair of fielders’ choices. 

“I feel like anytime I complain it’s pretty obvious,” said Harper of the missed calls. “He knows he missed them. Sometimes that happens. Umpire took over the game. I couldn’t say much more, I didn’t want to. I barely said anything to him when I walked off the first time on the strike three that was up. I respect Phil, I like Phil a lot. But obviously that doesn’t help us in that situation. He’s got to do better.”

As for his night, in which he had a hit and a walk in four plate appearances, Harper is feeling better after striking out five of his last six at-bats. “I felt confident today, felt really good where I was,” he said. “That’s going to be in for some good counts and be in some good situations.” 

His manager agreed. “I think he got a couple of swings off that I really liked,” said Thomson. “It looked normal. He was balanced and a lot of bat speed. Nice to see him get a base hit his first at-bat, walks, hopefully we’re making strides here.”

During all the craziness of the game, there were some positives to be taken. Kerkering’s work in the eighth, however, was not one of them.

“I haven’t seen the pitches yet, I haven’t looked at the tape, but he (Kerkering) was having trouble gripping the ball, for whatever reason, the ball was a little bit slick,” said Thomson. “It was more on his slider than his fastball. 

More than any other sport, you have to live to play another day in baseball. Sánchez’ effort allowed the Phillies to do just that.

Walker with a rested bullpen is the best case scenario Thomson could have asked for. Well, that and a win on Monday. But, sometimes, you just have to take what you can get. No matter the strange form in which it comes.

“Every time I’m on the mound I’m just thinking about going as late as I can in the game so we don’t have to go to the bullpen as often,” Sánchez said. It was certainly needed last night.

Craziness, good and bad all rolled into Phillies loss to Giants originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

SAN FRANCISCO – On a typically chilly summer night in the Bay Area, it was hoped that there wouldn’t be much action going on in the Phillies bullpen. Not that the work wouldn’t have kept the relievers warm, with Taijuan Walker once again thrusting into the starter’s role for Tuesday’s game in which he will see limited innings.

With snubbed All-Star Cristopher Sánchez on the mound, that didn’t appear to be an imminent problem against the San Francisco Giants on Monday. But when Sánchez was already at 59 thrown pitches through three innings, and had to continuously work out of precarious situations, many had to wonder what the immediate future may hold for the pitching staff.

In a game filled with defensive miscues, a ball careening off an infield cutout for a double, a run-saving ground-rule double, a run scoring on a wild pitch and a bunch of umpire missed calls, Sánchez pushed all that aside and settled in for a gutty, grinding and outstanding performance through seven innings. Erratic pitching from Orion Kerkering and very questionable calls from the home plate umpire led to a 3-1 loss for the Phillies in the opener of a six-game road trip.

“In the second inning, where they loaded the bases, he did a great job getting out of that with just one run,” said manager Rob Thomson. “Just getting behind guys early. I thought he was really good and battled through a couple of rough jams and I didn’t think there were that many balls hit hard off him. He got a lot of swings and misses, a lot of soft contact, ground balls. I thought he did a great job getting through seven.”

Sánchez allowed just one run in the second, though he gave up consecutive singles and a walk to begin the inning. A strikeout, a run-scoring fielders’ choice and a groundout ended what could have been worse.

Then in the third, a fly ball to short right with one out somehow landed between an incoming Nick Castellanos and an outgoing Bryson Stott. An out later, Matt Chapman hit a rocket to center that turned Brandon Marsh around twice before bouncing over the shortest part of the outfield wall for a ground-rule double. With runners on second and third, Sánchez struck out Wilmer Flores to end that threat. 

From there he settled into the form that should have been All-Star rewarded, retiring 12 of the next 15 batters he faced, racking up 105 pitches and saving strain on a bullpen that will almost certainly have just that on Tuesday.

But the Phillies offense couldn’t reward him with much support, as the lone run they scraped across came when Bryson Stott led off the inning with a double, moved to third on a ground out and scored on a wild pitch by starter Landen Roupp. 

“I think it went well,” said Sánchez. “I was sticking to the plan that we had to attack hitters early on. It was teamwork with J.T. (Realmuto) tonight, too. That motivates me a lot (not being named to All-Star team). We might not be going through our best stretch hitting right now so that motivates me a lot too, to have my team’s back and hold on and throw as many scoreless innings as I can to get games close and give our team a chance to win.” 

Adding to the strangeness of the night were two horribly called strikes on Bryce Harper by home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi. The first came with a man on in the fifth on a ball clearly above the strike zone. The second on an 0-1 pitch in the eighth with a runner on and no outs. That totally changed Harper’s approach and led to a ground out to the pitcher.

Then Kerkering, after hitting leadoff batter Willy Adames, appeared to strikeout Matt Chapman not once but twice on pitches clearly in the zone, but Cuzzi saw otherwise, setting up the winning half inning where the Giants scored twice with just one ball leaving the infield, courtesy of a pair of fielders’ choices. 

“I feel like anytime I complain it’s pretty obvious,” said Harper of the missed calls. “He knows he missed them. Sometimes that happens. Umpire took over the game. I couldn’t say much more, I didn’t want to. I barely said anything to him when I walked off the first time on the strike three that was up. I respect Phil, I like Phil a lot. But obviously that doesn’t help us in that situation. He’s got to do better.”

As for his night, in which he had a hit and a walk in four plate appearances, Harper is feeling better after striking out five of his last six at-bats. “I felt confident today, felt really good where I was,” he said. “That’s going to be in for some good counts and be in some good situations.” 

His manager agreed. “I think he got a couple of swings off that I really liked,” said Thomson. “It looked normal. He was balanced and a lot of bat speed. Nice to see him get a base hit his first at-bat, walks, hopefully we’re making strides here.”

During all the craziness of the game, there were some positives to be taken. Kerkering’s work in the eighth, however, was not one of them.

“I haven’t seen the pitches yet, I haven’t looked at the tape, but he (Kerkering) was having trouble gripping the ball, for whatever reason, the ball was a little bit slick,” said Thomson. “It was more on his slider than his fastball. 

More than any other sport, you have to live to play another day in baseball. Sánchez’ effort allowed the Phillies to do just that.

Walker with a rested bullpen is the best case scenario Thomson could have asked for. Well, that and a win on Monday. But, sometimes, you just have to take what you can get. No matter the strange form in which it comes.

“Every time I’m on the mound I’m just thinking about going as late as I can in the game so we don’t have to go to the bullpen as often,” Sánchez said. It was certainly needed last night.

Clayton Kershaw has been an All-Star 10 times before.

But no selection surprised him quite like this year’s.

Included on the National League All-Star team as a “Legend Pick” by Commissioner Rob Manfred in recognition of his career accomplishments, Kershaw did not get any advance warning from Manfred or anyone in the league office that he would be in the "Midsummer Classic."

When manager Dave Roberts gathered his Dodgers team to announce the club’s All-Star selections on Sunday, Kershaw forgot that the “Legend Pick” — which has been used in the past for players such as Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera — was even a thing.

Read more:'Really impressed.' Shohei Ohtani's return to two-way role going (mostly) well a month in

Thus, when Roberts announced Kershaw’s name, the 37-year-old was caught more than a little off-guard — having made just nine starts this season since returning from offseason toe and knee surgeries.

“Obviously, I don’t deserve to get to go this season, haven’t pitched very much,” he deadpanned. “I don’t know if Doc was going for the surprise factor or not. But I had no idea until he said it.”

But by Monday, the meaningfulness of what he described as a “tremendous honor” had also set in, with Kershaw expressing gratitude for what will be his 11th career selection, tied for the most among active players with Mike Trout.

“You never take for granted getting to go to an All-Star Game, regardless of the circumstances,” Kershaw said. “At the end of the day, it’s weird but cool, so I’m just going to enjoy it.”

While Kershaw’s limited workload would normally not warrant an All-Star selection, his stats haven’t been too far off that pace this year: A 4-0 record, 3.43 ERA and 1.254 WHIP in what is the 18th season of his future Hall of Fame career.

“I think there’s some good and some bad,” Kershaw said of his season so far. “I wouldn’t say happy, but I wouldn’t say disappointed either. I would say kind of right in the middle.”

The highlight of the campaign, of course, came in Kershaw’s last start, when he became the 20th pitcher in MLB history to record 3,000 career strikeouts.

But at this stage of his career, Kershaw’s real satisfaction has been with his health — finally past the various back, elbow, shoulder, knee and toe injuries that had plagued him over the last several seasons.

“I think the biggest thing is just the mental toll [that takes on you],” Kershaw said. “Anyone that has been dealing with stuff, I think it’s always in the back of your head. You wake up and you test it and you move around and you test it to see if it hurts, see how bad it hurts. [Now], instead of wondering if you can pitch, it’s just a matter of how you’re going to pitch. I don’t think I took into appreciation the mental toll that takes over time. So to just worry about pitching is nice, for sure.”

It has also allowed Kershaw “to get the reps and go back out and be able to feel OK in between starts to work on some stuff,” he said. “Figure out some different things mechanically and pitch-wise and stuff.”

Long-term, Kershaw still hasn’t decided if this will be his final season.

“I don’t know what is going to happen in the future,” he said. “I really have no idea when it comes to the years beyond this one. So I’m just trying to enjoy it, be part of a really good team this year.”

When it comes to next week’s All-Star Game, he isn’t even sure if he’ll pitch in the showcase exhibition, which will be held at Truist Park in Atlanta.

Read more:Shaikin: LAX won't say who designed its iconic murals, but the Dodgers will. Why?

“I’d love to pitch but I don’t want to take an inning away from somebody who’s never done it before or this is their first year or whatever,” he said. “I’ll enjoy just to hang or pitch or whatever.”

On Monday, Kershaw’s focus was instead on his final start of the first half: A scheduled Tuesday outing against the Milwaukee Brewers and their 23-year-old rookie starlet, Jacob Misiorowski.

Kershaw, 14 years Misiorowski’s senior, laughed when asked what it’s like to be the elder statesman in such high-profile matchups now.

“I saw a couple highlights [of him], know he throws hard,” Kershaw said. “But so does everybody. Except me.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.