LOS ANGELES -- The struggles continue for the Dodgers' starters, and so does the team's slide back toward the rest of the NL West field.
With Wednesday's 3-2 loss to St. Louis, the Dodgers are now just 3 1/2 games ahead of Colorado (three in the loss column), and the inability of the starters to provide innings remains a constant.
Clayton Kershaw went just 3 2/3 innings Wednesday night -- laboring through 97 pitches in the process -- marking the fourth time in the last seven games a Dodger starter has gone five innings or less. The Dodgers are 0-4 in those games, 2-5 in that seven-game stretch.
Kershaw, who showed flu-like symptoms on Tuesday and was an uncertain starter Wednesday, didn't blame illness for his issues against the Cardinals: "I don't think my health had anything to do with tonight."
But he did blame himself for the eventual outcome, even though he didn't get a decision. Jonathan Broxton ended up taking the loss with an unearned run in the ninth.
"I've got to figure out how to go deeper in games," he said, "and give this team a chance to win. It's disappointing. I know I let the team down tonight. I let everybody down. The bullpen had to bail me out. It just doesn't do anything for your team when you don't last very long."
Kershaw did give the Cardinals more than a little credit for the way his night went.
"That team, golly, they fouled off pitch after pitch," he said. "There just wasn't an easy out, and I wasn't throwing enough strikes. ... It was just a bad night."
The Dodgers are now 4-8 in the last 12. Starters have averaged seven innings in the four wins, and a fraction over five innings in the eight losses. (Kershaw, in an extra-inning loss at Atlanta, and knuckleballer Charlie Haeger, who lost on Monday, are the only starters to get past the sixth inning in those losses. They each went seven.)
The rotation issues -- struggles by Kershaw and Billingsley, the concussion to Hiroki Kuroda, and the long-term inability to identify a fifth starter -- led the Dodgers to sign Vicente Padilla, bad reputation and all, on Wednesday. He's slated to pitch in Albuquerque on Saturday and make his first Dodger start next Thursday in Colorado.
The way things are going right now, who knows? First place might be on the line in that game.