Kershaw becomes 20th member of 3,000-K club

LOS ANGELES -- His commencement prolonged, the whiffs remained elusive, and the Dodger Stadium assemblage became progressively acrophobic that Clayton Kershaw mightiness not scope a hallowed milestone successful beforehand of them. Finally, with 2 outs successful Wednesday's sixth inning, astatine the extremity of his outing, it happened -- an outside-corner slider to frost Chicago White Sox 3rd baseman Vinny Capra and marque Kershaw the 20th subordinate of the 3,000-strikeout club.

Kershaw came disconnected the tract and waved his headdress to a sold-out assemblage that had risen successful appreciation. His teammates past greeted him connected the field, dispersing hugs earlier a tribute video played connected the Dodger Stadium scoreboard, aft which Kershaw spilled retired of the dugout to greet the fans erstwhile more.

Kershaw, the Los Angeles Dodgers' longtime ace, is conscionable the 4th lefty to scope 3,000 strikeouts, joining Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton and CC Sabathia. He is 1 of conscionable 5 to accumulate that galore with 1 team, on with Walter Johnson, Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton and John Smoltz. The lone different progressive pitchers who reached 3,000 strikeouts are the 2 who person often been lumped with Kershaw among the top pitchers of this epoch -- Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, the second of whom reached the milestone arsenic a subordinate of the Dodgers successful September 2021.

Kershaw's archetypal strikeout accounted for the archetypal retired of the 3rd inning -- instantly aft Austin Slater's two-run homer gave the White Sox a 3-2 lead. Former Dodger Miguel Vargas fell down successful the count, 0-2, becoming the ninth batter to get to 2 strikes against Kershaw, past swung done a curveball debased and away. The adjacent strikeout, No. 2,999 of his career, came connected his season-high-tying 92nd transportation of the nighttime -- a curveball that landed good successful beforehand of location sheet and induced a plaything and miss of Lenyn Sosa to extremity the 5th inning.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts did not adjacent look astatine Kershaw arsenic helium made his mode backmost into the dugout, a wide motion that helium would not beryllium taken out. The assemblage erupted arsenic Kershaw took the mound for the commencement of the sixth inning. Mike Tauchman grounded out, Michael A. Taylor deed a double, past was caught stealing connected a play that prompted Dodgers 3rd baseman Max Muncy to travel down hard connected his near knee, forcing him to beryllium helped disconnected the field.

The temper abruptly turned somber astatine Dodger Stadium. Then, 4 pitches later, came elation.

Kershaw reached 3,000 strikeouts successful 2,787⅓ innings, making him the fourth-fastest to scope the mark, according to probe from the Elias Sports Bureau. The lone ones who got determination with less innings were Johnson (2,470⅔), Scherzer (2,516) and Pedro Martinez (2,647⅔).