Minus All-Star Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers defeat Pirates, 5-2

Five members of the Los Angeles Dodgers were named to the National League All-Star team before their 5-2 victory Monday night at Dodger Stadium against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Even without 10-time All-Star and three-time Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw missing his scheduled start Monday with shoulder soreness, the Dodgers (47-37) had plenty of star power to hand the Pirates’ their third consecutive defeat.

Although the Dodgers didn’t need any help, the Pirates handed out a bit of charity, anyway.

• Playing without leading hitter Andrew McCutchen (day off), the Pirates left nine runners on base, failing on seven of nine opportunities with runners in scoring position. Michael Grove, a former West Virginia University pitcher, started in Kershaw’s place and worked four innings, allowing one run, two walks and five hits (only two left the infield) while managing to lower his ERA to 7.02.

• Normally reliable first baseman Carlos Santana misplayed two groundballs — one scored a hit, the other an error — that led directly to two Dodgers runs. In 69 previous games, Santana was charged with only two errors.

• Starting pitcher Mitch Keller, less than a day removed from getting the news of his first All-Star Game assignment, was not at his best.

“We just didn’t play very sharp throughout,” manager Derek Shelton said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show. “Mitch wasn’t sharp. We didn’t play sharp defensively. We had a couple opportunities to score and only got one run in those opportunities.”

Shelton was referring to early in the game when his hitters stranded the bases loaded in the second inning and failed to capitalize on a walk and hit batsman to start the third. The Pirates came out of those situations with a total of one run.

In the second, Santana led off with a double. He advanced to third on a wild pitch, but Henry Davis struck out before Nick Gonzales hit a groundball to shortstop Miguel Rojas. Santana ran on contact and was an easy out at home plate.

The Dodgers helped the Pirates score a run that inning when Grove made an errant throw to first base on Rodolfo Castro’s weak single up the first base line. Gonzales advanced to third and scored on Jared Triolo’s single.

Austin Hedges’ infield single loaded the bases, but leadoff hitter Josh Palacios grounded out to end the inning.

Bryan Reynolds walked and Jack Suwinski was hit by a pitch to start the third, but Santana grounded into a double play and Davis bounced out to third base.

The Pirates (39-45) added a run in the sixth against relief pitcher Ryan Brasier on Hedges’ sacrifice fly, but they were hitless and scoreless in the final three innings.

After Grove left the game, the Dodgers used five relievers for one inning each, and they contained the Pirates on two hits over the final five. The Pirates have now scored three or fewer runs in eight of their past 11 road games.

“(Grove) kept us off-balance enough,” Shelton said of the Dodgers’ second-round draft choice in 2018. “He’s a young kid with a really good arm.”

Kershaw wasn’t a late scratch, so the Pirates had time to prepare for Grove, a 26-year-old Wheeling, W.Va., native. They had seen him previously, too, tagging him for three hits and three runs in one inning last year.

“We were fine there,” Shelton said. “We just have to execute a little bit better.”

The Dodgers took a 2-1 lead against Keller in the bottom of the second when Max Muncy homered — his 19th — and David Peralta and Jason Heyward hit back-to-back doubles. Heyward’s hit deflected off Santana’s glove.

Shelton said the baseball “took a funky hop on him and caught him in between.”

Davis limited the damage later that inning when he fielded Rojas’ single to right field and threw home with authority to hold Heyward at third. After a walk to Mookie Betts loaded the bases, Keller got Freddie Freeman to bounce out to third base.

The Dodgers’ scored twice off Keller in the fifth on three singles and an error by Santana on Heyward’s 65.7 mph groundball. Shelton said the ball had “some really weird spin on it.”

“This guy’s been one of, if not the best, defensive first basemen in the National League this year. Just one of those games.”

Keller struck out seven in five innings, but he allowed eight hits and five runs, all but one earned.

“It just didn’t look like he was moving down the mound the way he had the past couple starts,” Shelton said. “There are certain starts where you’re not moving as efficiently as you would like and that’s what it looked like.”

“I felt a little sluggish,” Keller said. “Just not as sharp and crisp.”