On Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers rather surprisingly found themselves in a close contest against the Chicago White Sox. Even though the Dodgers had the legendary Clayton Kershaw on the mound, they found themselves getting mostly quieted by Brandon Eisert and Sean Burke. In the end, however, the Dodgers still found a way to grab the victory, with Freddie Freeman coming up huge with a walk-off single to right field to cap off a three-inning ninth to give LA a 5-4 win.Freeman ended up saving Kershaw, who found himself in rarefied air on Wednesday after he tallied the 3,000th strikeout of his big-league career, making him just the 20th member of that exclusive club. The Dodgers legend entered the night in need of just three punchouts, and though he did accomplish the feat with his final pitch of the night, he nearly ended his historic outing with a loss after he allowed four earned runs to the White Sox.Nevertheless, all is well that ends well, and Kershaw will be very proud of his Dodgers teammates for getting the job done on a night that marked such a historic occasion for his Hall of Fame career. And as the old adage goes, greatness recognizes greatness, and one of the greatest basketball players of all-time and part Dodgers owner Magic Johnson congratulated the esteemed lefty for his latest accomplishment.
“Congratulations to @ClaytonKersh22 for reaching 3,000 career strikeouts with our @Dodgers ! 👏🏾,” Johnson wrote on his official account on X (formerly Twitter).
Kershaw has been a Dodgers lifer, and that doesn’t appear to be in danger of changing anytime soon. The 37-year-old southpaw became the Dodgers’ all-time leader in strikeouts back in 2022, and now, with nothing left to accomplish in his career that would soon have him in Cooperstown, he’s only padding his lead atop the Dodgers’ franchise leaderboard, perhaps building an insurmountable lead atop the rankings.
Clayton Kershaw still has plenty of gas left in the tank for the Dodgers
After seeing his 2024 season get cut short by an injury, Kershaw has shown that he still has plenty of gas left in the tank even though he’s already 37 years of age. In eight games prior to his start against the White Sox, Kershaw has tallied an ERA of 3.03 in 38.2 innings. Following his Wednesday night start, his ERA is still at 3.43 in 44.2 innings, making him a valuable contributor even at his advanced age.
And while it’s clear that he’s on a sharp decline, with his strikeout rate being around a career-worst level, the Dodgers still look towards him as a source of consistently solid starts, even if he may not be the ace he once was during his heyday.
