There were no beanballs, no ejections and no Chase Utley fireworks in Sunday night's tussle between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets.
But there was Clayton Kershaw, and lately that means flat-out greatness.
Well, OK, not just lately. Kershaw has been great for years now to the point where it's possible to take him for granted.
But over his past several starts, he's elevated his game to yet another level and put himself on track to claim another National League Cy Young Award and, yep, MVP trophy.
The Mets were merely the latest unlucky victims.
For 7.2 innings, the Dodgers left-hander carved New York's lineup into neat little pieces, striking out 10 with no walks and allowing two earned runs on four hits.
He surrendered a solo home run to Asdrubal Cabrera in the sixth. A second run was charged to his record when left-hander Adam Liberatore coughed up a Curtis Granderson RBI triple in the eighth, plating Kevin Plawecki, who had singled off Kershaw to lead off the inning.
The Dodgers, however, answered back with two runs in the top of the ninth on a bases-loaded Adrian Gonzalez single and went on to a 4-2 victory.
Kershaw didn't get the win, but his record still sits at a perfect 5-0 for the month of May. During that span, he's struck out 65 in 49.2 innings while surrendering two walks and five earned runs.
To say he's a shoo-in for Pitcher of the Month honors is beyond an understatement. ESPN.com's Doug Padilla was already asking if Kershaw had put together the best month ever before Sunday's gem.
On Saturday, the story was Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard throwing a blazing fastball behind Utley in the third inning and getting tossed, then Utley launching a pair of home runs.
That, in turn, exhumed memories of Utley's takeout slide in last year's National League Division Series between New York and Los Angeles, which ended Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada's season and ultimately led to an MLB rule change.
Any simmering ill will was pushed to the back burner as Kershaw took the hill opposite veteran Bartolo Colon, who yielded a pair of runs in six innings. Neither pitcher showed any hint of throwing at anyone. Cooler heads prevailed.
So did Kershaw and the Dodgers.
Eventually, he's going to lose again. He's not invincible, despite recent results to the contrary.
But on a flawed Los Angeles team that ranks in the bottom third in baseball in OPS and has question marks in the bullpen that bubbled up again Sunday, he's been nothing short of a savior.
Even after taking two straight from the Mets, the Dodgers still trail the archrival San Francisco Giants by 4.5 games in the NL West. Where would they be without Kershaw?
The Chavez Ravine faithful are no doubt shuddering at the thought.
Which brings us back to talk of another MVP Award. Kershaw claimed the prize in 2014 when he posted a 1.77 ERA with 239 strikeouts in 198.1 innings.
This year, his ERA sits at 1.56, and he's already compiled 105 strikeouts in 86.2 frames with just five walks, which inspired the following tongue-in-cheek response from former player and current ESPN analyst Doug Glanville:
Reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper is mired in a slump that has lowered his average to .245, though the 23-year-old is always a threat to go off.
Heck, with so much season left, there's time for any number of top talents to vault into the MVP conversation.
Right now, Kershaw's chief competition for the award might be Mets left fielder Yoenis Cespedes, who leads the Senior Circuit in home runs and slugging percentage.
On Sunday against Kershaw, Cespedes went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. It's only one game, obviously, and Cespedes remains a force. But it felt like a message was delivered.
Again, this transcendence is nothing new for Kershaw, as MLB.com's Michael Clair outlined:
Over the last three seasons, Kershaw has posted a 188 ERA+, a statistic that normalizes performance and compares it to the league average (which is 100). [Justin] Verlander's best season: 172. [Tim] Lincecum's: 171. [Felix] Hernandez: 174. That means Kershaw has been better, on average, over the past three years than any one of those guys was in his very best season.
We're nearing the point when it will be time to talk about Kershaw not merely as one of the best pitchers of his generation but one of the best of all time.
It will become even more unavoidable if Kershaw wins another MVP. Ten pitchers in MLB history, including Kershaw, have taken home an MVP and Cy Young in the same season. No one has done it twice.
"I wish we had 25 of him," Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts said of his ace, per Padilla.
That's understandable, especially given the Dodgers' shortcomings. It's also an impossibility.
Baseball is a game of surprise and uncertainty, but this much we know unequivocally: There's only one Clayton Kershaw.
All statistics current as of May 30 and courtesy of MLB.com and Baseball-Reference.com.
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