LOS ANGELES — If we needed one more reminder that striking out major league hitters isn’t easy – much less striking out 3,000 in a career – we got it Wednesday night.
Yes, Clayton Kershaw made history against the Chicago White Sox, becoming the 20th pitcher in MLB history to reach 3,000, just the fourth left-hander and only the third to strike ’em all out while playing his whole career for one team.
He needed three strikeouts going into the game, and it took him six innings and an even 100 pitches to get the third one, getting Vinny Capra on a slider for a called third strike to end the inning – three pitches after Max Muncy hurt his left knee in a collision with Michael A. Taylor while tagging him out trying to steal third.
This night was an appropriate demonstration of the pitcher Kershaw has become in his 18th season as a Dodger. The fastball no longer sizzles – Wednesday night he averaged 89.4 with his four-seam fastball, half a mph better than his season average – but he still got 15 swings and misses, nine of them on a slider that averaged 85.4 mph.
That slider, incidentally, he characterized as “so bad.” The pitch to Capra “wasn’t a good one,” he said. “Wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I’m just glad I got him out.”
The fact that Kershaw didn’t have full command of his out pitch but persevered and got it done anyway should be one tipoff as to why Dodger fans treasure him so, and why Wednesday night they seemed to want the accomplishment for him as much as or more than he wanted it for himself.
And it also said as much about the 18-year relationship between Kershaw and the Dodgers, and Kershaw and their fans, as it did about the number 3,000.
It was a relationship that began May 25, 2008, with a strikeout of Skip Schumaker – the very first hitter he faced – in a six-inning no-decision against the St. Louis Cardinals in his major league debut. Kershaw struck out seven that day, which suggested that the spring training game televised back to L.A. a couple of months before wasn’t a mirage, and that when Vin Scully gushed about the young pitcher after a 12-to-6 curveball froze Boston’s Sean Casey for a called third strike, this actually was a precursor to the real thing.
Fast forward to Wednesday night. Kershaw, not usually concerned with personal milestones, really did want No. 3,000 badly this night, to reward the home fans (and to avoid having to prolong the suspense until his next start next week in Milwaukee). The fans might have wanted it more. They roared when Kershaw got to two strikes. They groaned when those at-bats ended in something other than a strikeout. And they rooted him home, through his six innings and 100 pitches.
“I think the fans’ reaction more than anything was so special to me,” he said. “Before the game, kind of feeling the energy in the crowd. And it was definitely palpable. I think that’s the right word. I think you can feel it. And then like, after the fifth inning and going back out for the sixth and that crowd ovation was something that I’ll never forget for sure.”
This was, as Dodgers manager Dave Roberts put it before the game, one last box to check on Kershaw’s list of career accomplishments. Kershaw has won three Cy Young Awards and an MVP, led the majors in ERA four times and the National League a fifth, led the NL in strikeouts three times – and all of baseball in 2015 (with 301) – and has thrown a no-hitter.
And with two World Series championship rings he has erased the stigma of previous postseason failures, though in fairness too many starts on short rest played a role in those postseason stumbles early in his career. (So, too, did Game 5 of the 2017 World Series in Houston when, as we now are well aware, the Astros knew exactly what was coming and kept laying off of Kershaw’s slider.)
Now Kershaw joins a distinguished group in the 3,000-strikeout club. But in another sense he stands alone.
He’s the 20th to reach that figure. Only three others are left-handers: Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton and CC Sabathia. Only two others spent their entire careers with one team: Walter Johnson with the Washington Senators from 1907 to ’27, and Bob Gibson with the St. Louis Cardinals from 1959 to ’75.
Only Kershaw has done both.
Of those he now joins in the 3,000 Club, Kershaw said the career that most resonated with him was that of fellow lefty Sabathia, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this month. But it’s for a reason you might not expect if you weren’t watching closely.
“I remember watching CC when he got traded over to the Brewers (by Cleveland in 2008), and he pitched on three days’ rest constantly to try to get them in the playoffs all the way through, all the way through, all the way through, and just really put his team on his back,” Kershaw said. “And it really just kind of resonated with me, like what a starting pitcher can be and what he can do for a team like that, and just kind of no regard for himself, doing everything he can to get his team into the playoffs. And he succeeded, he did it. So just to see him get that 3,000, I just have a lot of respect for him. I think that was pretty awesome.”
If you think that sounds like the sort of stuff Kershaw attempted to do when his own team reached the postseason in later years, maybe that’s where it came from.
And there is another aspect to this, in those circle-of-life moments you might notice if you watch Dodgers telecasts. You see it frequently: Kershaw, on days when he’s not pitching, perched on the dugout railing, watching, talking to his fellow pitchers and almost certainly imparting the wisdom of one who has seen and done so much.
“A lot, a lot,” Roberts said when I asked him if Kershaw’s influence rubbed off on the youngsters on the staff. “You know guys grab him (and talk), but for the most part, I think that (it’s) just kind of how he goes about it. He’s always talking the game. He’s watching the game, more importantly. He’s very consistent. Even yesterday I was watching in the ’pen. He was doing his dry work (going through his pitching motion without a ball). And this is something he’s done for 18 years, the day before a start.
“Those things are things that players see, young pitchers see: The value of strike one, the value of going deeper in games and you know, commanding your secondaries (pitches) and things like that. So that’s something that you know guys not only that are here with us now, but that have been with him in years past that are taking to some of the stuff that he’s taught them.”
And I’d imagine Kershaw has dropped the following nugget into those conversations more than once.
“I told my teammates (after Wednesday’s game), individual awards are great, but if you don’t have anybody to celebrate with, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “And so to have that room full of guys – coaches, strength staff, training staff, front office, everybody – just really be happy for me is just awesome. They were in it with me, and it was an amazing night.”
jalexander@scng.com
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