‘Pitcher of a generation’: Clayton Kershaw flirts with perfect game as All-Star assignment awaits
ANAHEIM, Calif. – In his 15 well-decorated years in the major leagues, there have been nights Clayton Kershaw has been more dominant.
There have been nights he was all the Los Angeles Dodgers had, and he figuratively took them upon his back and willed them to victory.
Yet not until Friday night at Angel Stadium, with a thunderous crowd urging him on, had Kershaw come so close to perfection.
At 34, with his fastball topping out at a mortal 92 mph but his command impeccable, Kershaw took a perfect game into the eighth inning, just six outs away from the first perfecto of his career and just the 24th in major league history. The record books would not be disrupted on this evening: Luis Rengifo led off the eighth inning by clubbing a slider into left field for the lone blemish on Kershaw’s evening.
Yet in shutting down the flailing Los Angeles Angels in a 9-1 victory before 44,648 fans that roared a bit louder with every clean inning and turned a road ballpark into Chavez Ravine South, Kershaw, through his deeds, all but demanded the ball to start Tuesday’s All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium.
His words were less strident: Kershaw said there were pitchers with better resumes who are “more deserving than me,” and that he’s just happy to participate in his home ballpark.
Yet Friday was more proof that while Miami’s Sandy Alcantara (12 strikeouts in eight innings Friday) or Atlanta’s Max Fried (a 2.56 ERA in 40⅔ more innings pitched than Kershaw) might have a more compelling case, Kershaw offers a case that emerges from the record books.
“It’s a unique resume,” says Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “It’s the pitcher of a generation.”
In flirting with the second perfect game in Dodgers history and the first since 1965, when his fellow legendary lefty and mentor Sandy Koufax pulled it off, Kershaw showcased the smarts and command that made him a three-time Cy Young Award winner and still a dominant force, even as the crackle disappeared from a fastball that more regularly touched the mid-90s.
He struck out just six batters but walked nobody before departing after retiring the side in the eighth. He became the first pitcher to take a perfect game through seven innings twice in the same season since 1961; he set 21 Minnesota Twins down in order in his first start of the season in April, but Roberts, with the major leagues fresh off a 99-day lockout and Kershaw building back from an elbow injury that kept him from the 2021 postseason, lifted him before the eighth.
There were no such concerns Friday.
With one Angels legend, Shohei Ohtani, in the lineup and another, Mike Trout, sidelined with back spasms, an Angels lineup featuring four hitters batting .239 or less was no match for Kershaw. He needed just 59 pitches to navigate six innings, dotting the corners with his fastball, eliciting six swings and misses from his slider through five innings and occasionally making the Angels look foolish.
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Yet even as the art of hitting has devolved into historically bad league-wide batting averages, a full decade has passed since the last perfect game. Kershaw himself came about as close as you could: On June 18, 2014, Kershaw threw his only career no-hitter. He struck out 15 Colorado Rockies, a record in a no-hitter, and remains the only pitcher to throw a no-hitter, strike out 15 and walk nobody in the game. The lone blemish came on a Hanley Ramirez throwing error to lead off the seventh.
Friday, the tables were turned a bit. The Angels scorched seven hard-hit balls – with an exit velocity of 95 mph or more – against Kershaw. The lefty benefited from several dazzling defensive plays, most notably a wildly athletic sprawling dive and throw from Justin Turner to rob leadoff hitter Michael Stefanic in the fourth inning. Hanser Alberto, deep in the shift, hauled in a line drive.