How Tij Iginla’s NHL draft journey could see him possibly make history
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Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
Books have been written about how being the middle child often comes with not receiving the reverence that’s reserved for the oldest, or the amplified attention that’s given to the youngest.
When it comes to how he’s viewed in hockey, reverence and attention have become extremely familiar themes for Tij Iginla. Especially upon the realization that while there are hockey families, his family might be unlike any that hockey has ever encountered.
His father, Jarome, is a Hockey Hall of Famer. His oldest sibling, Jade, is the star of Brown University women’s hockey program, which she has led in scoring for the past two seasons. His youngest sibling, Joe, was a first-round pick by the WHL’s Edmonton Oil Kings and had five points in five games this season as a 15-year-old, creating the expectation that he could be the next of his name to have a bright future.
As for the middle Iginla child? There’s a chance Tij, the Kelowna Rockets winger could be the next first-round pick in the family, and potentially get drafted even higher than his father, who was the 11th pick of the 1995 NHL Draft.
“That’d be kinda funny and pretty cool to go ahead of him,” Tij Iginla said. “The top 10 itself would be a really cool achievement too. I try not to think about that stuff too much. But yeah, that’d be pretty cool to have the bragging rights for that.”
Numerous mock drafts have Iginla going in the top 10. The fact he’s even in the discussion of being a potential top-10 pick is exactly why the Rockets traded a first-round pick, a second-round pick and Grady Lenton to the Seattle Thunderbirds last June in exchange for Iginla.
Following the trade, Iginla went from a 16-year-old trying to find his way in the WHL to a 17-year-old who scored 47 goals and 84 points in 64 games to get the Rockets to the WHL playoffs, where he added another nine goals and 15 points in 11 postseason contests.
Whatever team drafts Iginla will do it with the belief that they’re getting a player who will be a long-term top-six center and help them go from their current state to one of a franchise with legitimate championship aspirations.
That expectation will start once he hears his name at the NHL draft in Las Vegas and walks the stage to accept the jersey and handshakes from the front office that selected him. But there’s added significance to his selection: he has a chance to become a second-generation Black NHL player, which is believed to be a first.
It is believed that the NHL has only seen two generations of a family of color once before, with Ted Nolan, who is a member of the Ojibwe tribe, and his sons, Jordan and Brandon.
“I never really thought about it like that, but that’s cool to hear,” Jarome said. “Growing up, I remember as a young Black hockey player that it was important for me to see the Black players before me and over my career. I met a lot of young Black hockey players that I was fortunate enough to talk to at hockey schools. It was definitely an honor that some of them looked up to me and I was a role model for them like those guys were for me.”
IGINLA WENT FROM six goals and 18 points in 48 games as a 16-year-old, to scoring eight goals and 20 points in his first 12 games in a Rockets sweater.
What was the big change?
“He was playing on a very deep team last year in Seattle as a young 16-year-old,” Rockets coach Kris Mallette said. “He was not getting the minutes that he really needed or was able to get. That’s the biggest difference.”
It was never a question of ability for Iginla. It was more about finding the right opportunity. Scoring 26 goals and 48 points in 32 games as a 15-year-old for the RINK Hockey Academy U-18 team is why the Thunderbirds drafted him ninth in the WHL Bantam Draft in 2021.
Iginla’s first full WHL season saw him play for a Thunderbirds team that was in contention to win the Memorial Cup. By the end of the regular season, they would have 16 NHL draft picks on their roster, with six of those prospects playing on the wing.
Even with limited playing time, there were items that the Rockets found enticing about Ignila’s game.
“His release is sneaky fast,” Mallette said. “We were able to watch it firsthand playing against Seattle and on video, you can see it, but when you see it in person, you see how quickly it gets from his stick to the net. You can’t blink. You have to follow it because it can go really quickly.”
Iginla was grateful to join the Rockets because it meant he would get a chance to spend more time with his family. Jarome and Kara Iginla decided to move to Kelowna because they wanted to live in a place they would enjoy, while also being in a location that would allow their children to continue their hockey development.
“As parents, we’ve loved having him back home,” Jarome said. “It’s been really enjoyable for us. It was good for him last year to move away to Seattle. It was a good challenge. It was hard for him. He didn’t play a lot and they were a good team. But he grew in other areas.”
Living with his parents provided Iginla with a chance to get in even more work beyond what he did at practice. Jarome said the family has a shooting area along with a separate space to work on stickhandling that was designed for all of their kids to get in extra skill development.
“We put in a good hockey facility at the house so our kids can do that nightly,” Jarome said. “It’s a chance to keep growing that most people don’t have, especially billets.”
Having a place to get in extra work while going to a team that could provide him the playing time he needed has allowed Iginla to find success in his draft year.
While Iginla received more playing time, he said what specifically allowed him to finish sixth in the WHL in goals was being trusted to handle the demands of being a top-line forward. He played against other top lines and defensive pairings, while logging minutes on the Rockets’ top power-play unit.
Iginla scored 11 power-play goals for a Rockets power-play that finished ninth, while his eight game-winning goals were tied for seventh. His nine playoff goals were sixth in the WHL playoffs, though he played 11 postseason games while everyone else in the top 10 in playoff goals appeared in more than 15.
“When it’s your draft year, everyone is thinking about the draft and you’re comparing things like points,” Tij Iginla said. “But what you’re trying to do is stay focused and not worry too much about that. You just try to put it into perspective, too. The draft is obviously huge, but it’s one year. It’s your 17-year-old year and I don’t just want to [just] have a great draft year. I want to have a great NHL career.”
That level of perspective partially comes from having a dad who went through the process nearly 30 years ago.
Jarome said his draft year was “exciting but stressful” because it’s a step closer toward that lifelong dream of the NHL, while being constantly judged. He said having scouts at every game made every day matter, which can be a lot.
“Outwardly, it does not seem to be too much pressure,” Jarome explained. “I know inwardly, there are those certain days when you emphasize how you didn’t play well or you didn’t have a good game. We try to support them. We do have a lot of stories of when I went through it. I am sure they get sick of it! But there are times when it does get hard.”
CALEB AND SETH JONES. Mathieu and Pierre-Olivier Joseph. Anthony and Chris Stewart. Gemel and Givani Smith. Malcolm and P.K. Subban. These are all examples of Black families that have played in the NHL, and it appears that the Iginlas could be the next, while also being the first Black father and son to play in the league.
After Willie O’Ree became the first Black player in NHL history back in 1957, the league still needed more time before it saw others. Mike Marson was next, and he didn’t make his debut until 1974. Grant Fuhr, Dirk Graham and Val James were arguably the most prominent Black players throughout the 1980s.
Yet it was in the 1990s when the NHL saw a sizable surge in Black players. There had been 17 Black players who made their NHL debut prior to 1990. Twenty-three Black players entered the NHL from 1990 through 1999.
Jarome was part of a wave that included Donald Brashear, Anson Carter, Mike Grier, Jamal Mayers and Kevin Weekes. He also became one of the faces — and for a time, the face — of the NHL. Arguably the strongest example of his reach came when he was selected as the cover athlete for EA Sports’ NHL 2003, becoming the first Black player to grace the game’s cover. Nearly 20 years passed before P.K. Subban became the second Black player on the cover, when he received the honor with NHL 19.
Iginla also became the first Black player in NHL history to score more than 600 career goals, more than 600 career assists and 1,000 career points.
In 2020, Jarome joined O’Ree and Fuhr as the third Black player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
“That’s something I have grown to appreciate as I got older,” Tij said of his father’s Hall of Fame career. “When I was a kid just watching, I knew he was a good player, but I never thought about things like that. But with as many people as he’s been able to inspire because of what he’s done is pretty cool.”
The 2000s saw 27 Black players make their NHL debut, including Evander Kane and Kyle Okposo, who played against each other in the 2024 Stanley Cup Final. But the majority of that group — along with the players who debuted in the 1990s such as Iginla — have since retired, and are now playing an instrumental role in ushering what stands to be the first set of second-generation Black players.
It’s an era that could start with Iginla, and continue with others such as Trevor Daley’s son, also named Trevor, along with Georges Laraque’s son, Marcus.
Trevor Daley Jr., who is 15, just finished playing for the Florida Alliance AAA program where he scored 75 goals and 142 points in 61 games, whereas Marcus Laraque, who is also 15, is already 6-foot-4 and scored 13 goals and 40 points in 28 games for his club team in Edmonton.
As for the elder Daley, the 40-year-old defenseman last played in the NHL during the 2019-20 season. Playing 1,058 NHL games provided Daley with the longevity that allows him to further appreciate seeing sons follow their fathers. Daley recalled when he was a rookie with the Dallas Stars during the 2003-04 season and was teammates with future Hall of Fame center Pierre Turgeon, who would have his son, Dominic, around the team.
Daley’s career would see him join the Detroit Red Wings for his three final NHL seasons. His first season with the Red Wings saw him reunite with a familiar face as Dominic Turgeon played six games for the club that season.
Playing with two generations of Turgeon’s made Daley joke that he knew it was time for him to get out of the game. But to see a son follow his father into the NHL was something Daley thought was special. To see that the Iginla’s could follow a similar path while knowing the NHL has a chance to see more Black families do the same is something Daley said could help grow the game.
“I have always been so appreciative of the ones before me that I never really thought that a second generation could be coming in,” the elder Daley said. “I never looked at it that way and always looked at the guys before me. The fact we can say ‘second generation’ and having Jarome’s kid coming up is pretty cool even for me to soak all that in, to realize we know we have ‘Jarome No. 2’ coming in.”
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Bradford Doolittle
The 3,000-strikeout club has grown by one, with Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers whiffing the Chicago White Sox‘s Vinny Capra in the sixth inning Wednesday at Dodger Stadium, becoming the 20th pitcher in baseball history to reach that milestone.
The 3K pitching club doesn’t generate as much hullabaloo as its hitting counterpart, but it is more exclusive: Thirty-three players have reached 3,000 hits.
When you look at the list of pitchers with 3,000 strikeouts, and Kershaw’s place on it, a few things jump out.
• None of them pitched at Ebbets Field, at least not in a regular-season game. I frame it like that to illustrate that this level of whiffery is a fairly recent phenomenon. The Dodgers bolted Brooklyn after the 1957 season, and at that point, Walter Johnson was the only member of the 3,000-strikeout club. A career Washington Senator, he never pitched against the Dodgers. Every other 3K member made his big league debut in 1959 or later. Half of them debuted in 1984 or later. Three of them (Kershaw, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander) are active.
• For now, Kershaw has thrown the fewest career innings of any 3K member, though he’s likely to eventually end up with more frames than Pedro Martinez.
• Kershaw has the highest winning percentage of the 20 (.697) and the best ERA+ (155), though his edges over Martinez (.685 and 154) are razor thin.
• Kershaw tops the list in average game score (61.9) and is tied for second (with Bob Gibson) for quality start percentage (68%), behind only Tom Seaver (70%).
• Kershaw lags behind in bWAR, at least among this group of current, future and should-be Hall of Famers with 77.1, ranking 16th.
So where does Kershaw really rank in the 3K club? I’m glad you asked.
First, what should be obvious from the above bullet points is that the response to the question will vary according to how you choose to answer it. The ranking below reflects not only how I chose to answer the question but how I’d like to see starting pitchers rated in general — even today, in the wildly different context from the days of Walter Johnson.
1. Roger Clemens
FWP: 568.8 | Strikeouts: 4,672 (3rd in MLB history)
Game score W-L: 477-230 (.675)
The top three pitchers on the list, including Rocket, match the modern-era top three for all pitchers, not just the 3K guys. (The string is broken by fourth-place Christy Mathewson.) Before running the numbers, I figured Walter Johnson, with his modern-era record of 417 career wins (the old-fashioned variety), would top the list. But Clemens actually started more games (relief appearances don’t factor in) and had a better game score win percentage.
2. Randy Johnson
FWP: 532.9 | Strikeouts: 4,875 (2nd)
Game score W-L: 421-182 (.698)
Since we’re lopping off pre-1901 performances, the method does Cy Young dirty. Only two pitchers — Young (511 wins) and Walter Johnson got to 400 career wins by the traditional method. By the game score method, the club grows to nine, including a bunch of players many of us actually got to see play. The Big Unit is one of the new 400-game winners, and of the nine, his game score winning percentage is the highest. The only thing keeping Johnson from No. 1 on this list is that he logged 104 fewer career starts than Clemens.
3. Walter Johnson
FWP: 494.7 | Strikeouts: 3,509 (9th)
Game score W-L: 437-229 (.656)
Don’t weep for the Big Train — even this revamping of his century-old performance record and the fixation on strikeouts can’t dim his greatness. That fact we mentioned in the introduction — that every 3K member except Walter Johnson debuted in 1959 or later — tells you a lot about just how much he was a man out of his time. Johnson retired after the 1927 season and surpassed 3,000 strikeouts by whiffing Cleveland’s Stan Coveleski on July 22, 1923. It was nearly 51 years before Gibson became 3K member No. 2 on July 17, 1974.
4. Greg Maddux
FWP: 443.3 | Strikeouts: 3,371 (12th)
Game score W-L: 453-287 (.612)
There is a stark contrast between pitcher No. 4 and pitcher No. 5 on this ranking. The wild thing about Maddux ranking above Nolan Ryan in a group selected for strikeouts is that no one thinks of Maddux as a strikeout pitcher. He never led a league in whiffs and topped 200 just once (204 in 1998). He was just an amazingly good pitcher for a really long time.
5. Nolan Ryan
FWP: 443.1 | Strikeouts: 5,714 (1st)
Game score W-L: 467-306 (.604)
Ryan is without a doubt the greatest strikeout pitcher who ever lived, and it’s really hard to imagine someone surpassing him. This is a guy who struck out his first six batters in 1966, when Lyndon Johnson was in the White House, and his last 46 in 1993, when Bill Clinton was there. Ryan was often criticized during his heyday for his win-loss record, but the game score method clears that right up. Ryan’s revised winning percentage (.604) is markedly higher than his actual percentage (.526).
6. Max Scherzer
FWP: 385.7 | Strikeouts: 3,419 (11th)
Game score W-L: 315-145 (.685)
Here’s another club Mad Max is in: .680 or better game score winning percentage, minimum 100 career starts. He’s one of just eight members, along with Kershaw. The list is topped by Smoky Joe Wood, who dominated the AL during the 1910s before hurting his arm and converting into a full-time outfielder. The full list: Wood, Martinez, Randy Johnson, Lefty Grove, Mathewson, Kershaw, Stephen Strasburg and Scherzer.
7. Justin Verlander
FWP: 385.0 | Strikeouts: 3,471 (10th)
Game score W-L: 349-190 (.647)
Like Scherzer, Verlander is fresh off the injured list. Thus, the two active leaders in our version of FWP have resumed their tight battle for permanent supremacy. Both also resume their quests to become the 10th and 11th pitchers to reach 3,500 strikeouts. Verlander, who hasn’t earned a traditional win in 13 starts, is 4-9 this season by the game score method.
8. Pedro Martinez
FWP: 383.5 | Strikeouts: 3,154 (15th)
Game score W-L: 292-117 (.714)
By so many measures, Martinez is one of the greatest of all time, even if his career volume didn’t reach the same levels as those of the others on the list. His 409 career starts are easily the fewest of the 3K club. But he has the highest game score winning percentage and, likewise, the highest score for FWP per start (.938).
9. Steve Carlton
FWP: 379.8 | Strikeouts: 4,136 (4th)
Game score W-L: 420-289 (.592)
When you think of Lefty, you think of his 1972 season, when he went 27-10 (traditional method) for a Phillies team that went 59-97. What does the game score method think of that season? It hates it. Kidding! No, Carlton, as you’d expect, dominated, going 32-9. So think of it like this: There were 32 times in 1972 that Carlton outpitched his starting counterpart despite the lethargic offense behind him.
10. Tom Seaver
FWP: 371.3 | Strikeouts: 3,640 (6th)
Game score W-L: 391-256 (.604)
Perhaps no other pitcher of his time demonstrated a more lethal combination of dominance and consistency than Seaver. The consistency is his historical differentiator. As mentioned, his career quality start percentage (70%) is tops among this group. Among all pitchers with at least 100 career starts, he ranks fifth. Dead ball era pitchers get a leg up in this stat, so the leader is the fairly anonymous Jeff Tesreau (72%), a standout for John McGraw’s New York Giants during the 1910s. The others ahead of Seaver are a fascinating bunch. One is Babe Ruth, and another is Ernie Shore, who in 1917 relieved Ruth when The Babe was ejected after walking a batter to start a game. Shore replaced him, picked off the batter who walked, then went on to retire all 26 batters he faced. The other ahead of Seaver: Jacob deGrom.
11. Clayton Kershaw
FWP: 370.9 | Strikeouts: 3,000 (20th)
Game score W-L: 301-137 (.687)
And here’s the guest of honor, our reason for doing this ranking exercise. As you can see, Kershaw joined the 300-game-score win club in his last start before Wednesday’s milestone game, becoming the 38th member. In so many measures of dominance, consistency and efficiency, Kershaw ranks as one of the very best pitchers of all time. When you think that he, Verlander and Scherzer are all in the waning years of Hall of Fame careers, you can’t help but wonder who, if anyone, is going to join some of the elite starting pitching statistical clubs in the future.
12. Don Sutton
FWP: 370.6 | Strikeouts: 3,574 (7th)
Game score W-L: 437-319 (.578)
For a post-dead ball pitcher, Sutton was a model of durability. He ranks third in career starts (756) and seventh in innings (5,283⅓). During the first 15 seasons of his career, Sutton started 31 or more games 14 times and threw at least 207 innings for the Dodgers in every season.
13. Ferguson Jenkins
FWP: 353.8 | Strikeouts: 3,192 (14th)
Game score W-L: 363-231 (.611)
Jenkins is in the Hall of Fame, so we can’t exactly say he was overlooked. Still, it does feel like he’s a bit underrated on the historical scale. His FWP score ranks 17th among all pitchers, and the game score method gives him a significant win-loss boost. That .611 percentage you see here is a good bit higher than his actual .557 career winning percentage. He just didn’t play for very many good teams and, in fact, never appeared in the postseason. He’s not the only Hall of Famer associated with the Chicago Cubs who suffered that fate.
14. Gaylord Perry
FWP: 335.6 | Strikeouts: 3,534 (8th)
Game score W-L: 398-292 (.577)
Perry, famous for doing, uh, whatever it takes to win a game, famously hung around past his expiration date to get to 300 wins, and he ended up with 314. Poor Perry: If my game score method had been in effect, he’d have quit two wins shy of 400. Would someone have given him a shot at getting there in 1984, when he was 45? One of history’s great what-if questions.
15. Phil Niekro
FWP: 332.5 | Strikeouts: 3,342 (13th)
Game score W-L: 408-308 (.570)
Knucksie won 318 games, and lost 274, the type of career exemplified by his 1979 season, when he went 21-20. We aren’t likely to see anyone again pair a 20-win season with a 20-loss season. His .537 traditional winning percentage improves with the game score method, but he’s still the low man in the 3K club in that column. Niekro joins Ryan and Sutton on the list of those with 300 game score losses. Sutton, at 319, is the leader. The others: Tommy John, Tom Glavine and Jamie Moyer. Of course, they were all safely over the 300-game-score win threshold as well.
16. CC Sabathia
FWP: 323.2 | Strikeouts: 3,093 (18th)
Game score W-L: 339-221 (.605)
Sabathia will be inducted into the Hall of Fame next month, and his place in this group only underscores how deserving he is of that honor. Sabathia debuted in 2001, and to reach the 250 traditional-win level (he won 251) in this era is an amazing feat. The only pitcher in that club who debuted later is Verlander, stuck at 262 wins after debuting in 2005. Right now, it’s hard to imagine who, if anyone, will be next. Of course, if we just went with game score wins, that would be different.
17. Bob Gibson
FWP: 321.0 | Strikeouts: 3,117 (16th)
Game score W-L: 305-177 (.633)
Gibson, incidentally, also won 251 games — and also gets enough boost from the game score method to climb over 300. His revised percentage is better than his traditional mark of .591. His average game score ranks third in this group, a reflection of his steady dominance but also of the era in which he pitched. Gibson is tied for eighth in quality start percentage among all pitchers. In 1968, when Gibson owned the baseball world with a 1.12 ERA, he went 22-9 by the traditional method. The game score method: 26-8. You’d think it would be even better, but it was, after all, the Year of the Pitcher.
18. Bert Blyleven
FWP: 320.2 | Strikeouts: 3,701 (5th)
Game score W-L: 391-294 (.571)
It took a prolonged campaign by statheads to raise awareness about Blyleven’s greatness and aid his eventual Cooperstown induction. He finished with 287 traditional wins, short of the historical benchmark. Here he would fall short of the 400-win benchmark, but, nevertheless, he is tied with John and Seaver for 11th on the game score wins list. His actual winning percentage was .534.
19. Curt Schilling
FWP: 307.1 | Strikeouts: 3,116 (17th)
Game score W-L: 281-155 (.644)
There are 31 pitchers who have broken the 300 FWP level, and it’s hard for me to imagine how anyone in that group could be left out of Cooperstown. You can sort this out for yourself in terms of baseball and not baseball reasons for this, but the group not there is Clemens, Schilling, John and Andy Pettitte, plus the greats (Kershaw, Verlander, Scherzer) who are still active.
20. John Smoltz
FWP: 273.8 | Strikeouts: 3,084 (19th)
Game score W-L: 290-191 (.603)
Smoltz won 213 games the traditional way, and he falls just short of 300 by the revised method. But all of this is about starting pitching, and with Smoltz, that overlooks a lot. After missing the 2000 season because of injury, he returned as a reliever, and for four seasons he was one of the best, logging 154 saves during that time. He’s the only member of the 200-win, 100-save club.
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — Clayton Kershaw‘s 3,000th career strikeout was preceded by a scary, dispiriting moment, when Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy injured his left knee and had to be helped off the field Wednesday night.
Muncy is set to undergo an MRI on Thursday, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said initial tests have them feeling “optimistic” and that the “hope” is Muncy only sustained a sprain.
With one out in the sixth inning, Muncy jumped to catch a throw from Dodgers catcher Will Smith, then tagged out Chicago White Sox center fielder Michael A. Taylor on an attempted steal and immediately clutched his left knee, prompting a visit from Roberts and head trainer Thomas Albert.
Muncy wrapped his left arm around Albert and walked toward the third-base dugout, replaced by Enrique Hernandez. His injury, caused by Taylor’s helmet slamming into the side of his left knee on a headfirst slide, was so gruesome that the team’s broadcast opted not to show a replay.
Taylor also exited the game with what initially was diagnosed as a left trap contusion.
The Dodgers went on to win 5-4 on Freddie Freeman‘s walk-off single that scored Shohei Ohtani.
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — His start prolonged, the whiffs remained elusive, and the Dodger Stadium crowd became increasingly concerned that Clayton Kershaw might not reach a hallowed milestone in front of them Wednesday. Finally, with two outs in the sixth inning, on his 100th pitch of the night, it happened — an outside-corner slider to freeze Chicago White Sox third baseman Vinny Capra and make Kershaw the 20th member of the 3,000-strikeout club.
Kershaw came off the mound and waved his cap to a sold-out crowd that had risen in appreciation. His teammates then greeted him on the field, dispersing hugs before a tribute video played on the scoreboard, after which Kershaw spilled out of the dugout to greet the fans once more.
Kershaw, the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ longtime ace, is just the fourth lefty to reach 3,000 strikeouts, joining Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton and CC Sabathia. He is one of just five pitchers to accumulate that many with one team, along with Walter Johnson, Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton and John Smoltz. The only other active pitchers who reached 3,000 strikeouts are the two who have often been lumped with Kershaw among the greatest pitchers of this era: Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, the latter of whom reached the milestone as a member of the Dodgers in September 2021.
Kershaw’s first strikeout accounted for the first out of the third inning — immediately after Austin Slater’s two-run homer gave the White Sox a 3-2 lead. Former Dodger Miguel Vargas fell behind in the count 0-2, becoming the ninth batter to get to two strikes against Kershaw, then swung through a curveball low and away. The next strikeout, No. 2,999 of his career, came on his season-high-tying 92nd pitch of the night, a curveball that landed well in front of home plate and induced a swing-and-miss from Lenyn Sosa to end the fifth inning.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts did not even look at Kershaw as he made his way back into the dugout, a clear sign that Kershaw would not be taken out. The crowd erupted as Kershaw took the mound for the start of the sixth inning. Mike Tauchman grounded out and Michael A. Taylor hit a double, then was caught stealing on a play that prompted Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy to come down hard on his left knee, forcing him to be helped off the field.
The mood suddenly turned somber at Dodger Stadium. Then, four pitches later, came elation.
Kershaw reached 3,000 strikeouts in 2,787⅓ innings, making him the fourth-fastest player to reach the mark, according to research from the Elias Sports Bureau. The only ones who got there with fewer innings were Johnson (2,470⅔), Scherzer (2,516) and Pedro Martinez (2,647⅔).
The Dodgers came back to win 5-4, capping their rally with three runs in the bottom of the ninth.
Before the game, Roberts called the 3,000-strikeout milestone “the last box” of a Hall of Fame career — one whose spot in Cooperstown had already been cemented by three Cy Young Awards, 10 All-Star Games, an MVP, five ERA titles and more than 200 wins.
Kershaw’s 2.51 ERA is the lowest in the Live Ball era (since 1920) among those with at least 1,500 innings, even though Kershaw has nearly doubled that. He was a force early, averaging 200 innings and 218 strikeouts per season from 2010 to 2019. And he was a wonder late, finding ways to continually keep opposing lineups in check with his body aching and his fastball down into the high 80s.
Kershaw went on the injured list at least once every year from 2016 to 2024. A foot injury made him a spectator last October, when the Dodgers claimed their second championship in five years. The following month, Kershaw underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee and a ruptured plantar plate in his left big toe, then re-signed with the Dodgers and joined the rotation in mid-May. He allowed five runs in four innings in his debut but went 4-0 with a 2.08 ERA in his next seven starts, stabilizing a shorthanded rotation that remains without Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki and Tony Gonsolin.
Since the start of 2021, Kershaw has somehow managed to put up the sixth-lowest ERA among those with at least 400 innings.
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