Durability and dominance are the twin pillars of pitching greatness. Prevent runs for a long time while humbling the world’s greatest hitters: Few have ever done it better than Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Sometime soon, Kershaw will record his 3,000th career strikeout. On Wednesday, in his third start of the season, Kershaw struck out three Cleveland Guardians to push his total to 2,974. His career ERA is 2.51.
Only one pitcher in history has that many strikeouts with a better ERA: Walter Johnson, who was born 100 years before Kershaw and last pitched in 1927. Johnson had a 2.17 ERA and 3,509 strikeouts — and if he had whiffed batters at Kershaw’s rate, he would have almost 6,400 strikeouts.
Kershaw’s next start is scheduled for Tuesday, against the New York Mets.
In Andy McCullough’s engrossing Kershaw biography, “The Last of His Kind,” Kershaw said flatly that he did not care about 3,000 strikeouts.
He does.
“Yeah, I’d be lying if I didn’t want to do it,” Kershaw said recently. “But I think the coolest part is the company you get to be a part of. You know what I mean? There’s just some really special names.”
He laughed and continued: “I try not to think about it, because honestly, at this rate, 30 strikeouts seems like a lot. A lot can happen. But if I ever do get to do it, the guys that I came up with, Scherz and Verlander, I want to be in that group, too.”
Justin Verlander (3,457 strikeouts), 42, is on the San Francisco Giants’ injured list with a pectoral injury, and the 40-year-old Max Scherzer (3,408), now with the Toronto Blue Jays, has been out since March with right thumb inflammation. Kershaw, 37, is coming off knee and toe operations. What a drag it is getting old.
The three aces, of course, have a lot to show for their hardship. Each has earned more than 200 victories (262 for Verlander, 216 for Scherzer, 212 for Kershaw), which is hard to do without a lot of success before age 30. When Kershaw turned 30, he had 144 victories. Verlander had 124 at that age, Scherzer 85.
The active under-30 leader in victories? The Giants’ Logan Webb, 28, with 60 — fewer than half of what either Kershaw and Verlander totaled by 30. If there’s a certain successor to Kershaw, he hasn’t revealed himself.
“It is weird to not see young guys figure it out,” Kershaw said. “I wish there was a simple solution.”
Nobody who started his career after 1988 has 300 career wins. But after this generation, is 200 also doomed? The master has thoughts.
“I hope starting pitching has a resurgence,” Kershaw said. “I think it’s better for the game to have starters throw 200-plus innings — 115, 120 pitches. Seeing those matchups in the seventh inning, that’s what fans like. I think it’s better for baseball, I think it’s better for health, I think it’s better for relievers. It’s good for a lot of things.
“Now, how can we get back to that in an age where we have to have incredible stuff, be able to maintain it? I don’t know how you get back to that, because I do think it is harder now. I think hitting is better. I think the strike zone’s smaller. Even from 10 years ago, I think everybody’s just better. I think the talent is just so much better.”
Through Sunday, only one MLB pitcher had reached 115 pitches in a start this season — Tampa Bay’s Zack Littell, who recorded 117 on Saturday. The Dodgers have had only two seven-inning starts (both by Yoshinobu Yamamoto), the same as the Milwaukee Brewers and the Mets. The Chicago White Sox have had one.
In spring training, after the New York Yankees lost Gerrit Cole to Tommy John surgery, his teammate Carlos Rodón noted that every throw was tracked for shape and spin, even in the bullpen. It’s max effort with every pitch, every time.
“I agree with that, but at the same time, that’s how you get drafted, that’s how you make it through the minor leagues,” Kershaw said. “So that’s what you do, because teams value that over learning how to pitch.”
Kershaw, a father of four, drew an apt analogy: In farm systems, he said, it’s as if teams build fleets of Ferraris without making any minivans. Sometimes, he said, a minivan gets the job done.
“So there needs to be some blend of it to a point where you can do both,” he said, referring to power and durability. “I know everybody’s starting to think about how to keep guys healthier and how to get starters, because we use our whole bullpen more than anybody, and as good as our bullpen is, it’s a hard thing to sustain.
