‘I always wanted to follow in my dad’s footsteps’: Inside the MLB draft journey for the sons of two former major leaguers
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Kiley McDaniel
ONE OF ELI WILLITS’ earliest baseball memories is of playing catch with his father, Reggie, in the Angel Stadium outfield. In late June, Eli again took the field that his dad called home during six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels during a private workout with the team, which has the No. 2 pick in the 2025 MLB draft.
“Eli was working out last week for the Angels. For me, it was surreal. He was hitting and taking ground balls, and my boys have been doing that with me since they were little,” Reggie Willits said. “Me, Jaxon and Eli would go out to left field and we’d take BP out there; they were so small. That way, they could hit homers into the bullpen. It was a surreal moment for us as a family. I played my whole career in that stadium.”
Ethan Holliday was born in 2007, the same year that his father, Matt, finished second in National League MVP voting for the Colorado Rockies, and fondly remembers taking a trip to Busch Stadium with his brother, Jackson, when Ethan was 6 or 7 to see their dad star for the St. Louis Cardinals. Both of those teams hold picks in the first five selections of the upcoming draft, but there is no guarantee that Ethan will be available by the time Colorado is up at No. 4 or St. Louis one pick later.
The two Oklahoma high school stars have a lot in common: They’re both sons of former major leaguers who also have brothers excelling in the family business. They’re both expected to hear their names called early in this year’s draft. And they have even formed a tight friendship through baseball.
But for all the glamour that comes with potential stardom, both have learned from their fathers how much work behind the scenes is needed on the road to the top of the draft.
“‘Do you like your name above the locker?’ Yes,” Eli remembers responding to a series of questions posed by his dad about a decade ago. “‘Do you like going out there in front of 50,000 fans?’ Yes,” Eli said. “‘Do you want to get up at 4 a.m. and go work out?’ No.” Eli said while laughing. “But that’s what it takes, and I always wanted to follow in my dad’s footsteps. … I’m very grateful for that chance.”
THE HOLLIDAYS ARE the established first family of Oklahoma baseball, helping to raise the profile of a state not known as a hotbed for draft prospects.
Matt hit .299 with 316 home runs over 15 years in the majors, and his brother Josh is the head coach at Oklahoma State (following the footsteps of their father, Tom, who coached the Cowboys for 26 seasons). Ethan’s brother, Jackson, added to the family legacy by becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 draft and plays second base for the Baltimore Orioles.
I first noticed Ethan when he was a freshman at Stillwater High. He was batting behind his brother, whom dozens of scouts were there to watch. Ethan already stood out.
Lastly, Jackson’s younger brother 3B Ethan Holliday was really impressive in general before you realize he is a 15-year-old freshman. Here’s a homer and some BP cuts: pic.twitter.com/WWrnYwRnUT
— Kiley McDaniel (@kileymcd) April 27, 2022
Being the younger brother of a top prospect has given Ethan a window into the draft process that most players don’t experience. He has seen Jackson go through the transition from teammate to becoming the No. 1 pick to making his big league debut, and that has eased Ethan’s transition into his draft process.
“I was his wingman that year. I got to be in his meetings, be with him in games and practices, when there were 40 scouts coming to every game and everyone had their camera up when he hit, I was right there with him,” Ethan said. “It’s obviously a little different going through it myself, but that definitely took some weight off.”
Jackson’s quick ascent — he ranked No. 1 on my top 100 prospect list in 2024 — also helped shine a spotlight on Ethan early in his high school career. Ethan has been the most well-known player on any field he has been on for at least a year. Before his senior season, he became the first high school player to sign an NIL deal with Adidas, the brand Jackson signed with once he turned pro.
But despite the apparent advantages of his baseball lineage, it hasn’t all been easy for Ethan. To some scouts, he underperformed last summer on the showcase circuit against the best high school pitchers in the country. Entering the spring, some in the industry questioned whether he would deliver on his potential and the hype tied to his last name.
When asked an open-ended question about the evolution of his swing and not mentioning that narrative, he clearly was aware of it in his response.
“In high school, you face a good pitcher, and their plan is to throw offspeed because they don’t trust their fastball,” Ethan said. “In the summer, the pitchers are coming in for one inning and throwing as hard as they can. It’s different. I never got anything other than spin in high school, so making the adjustment for the summer was difficult. My dad has really helped me with my approach, my swing.”
As you might expect from someone who has had a recent major league star to turn to for baseball advice, Ethan handled the topic like a pro. He had a huge high school season, and those offensive concerns have subsided because of his performance.
Despite some wondering whether Ethan would have a big spring, most scouts were optimistic because Matt is considered one of the better swing coaches in the sport. His son has taken up his dad’s penchant for picking up on the components of a swing.
“I’ve had a leg kick my whole life,” Ethan said. “One day in the cage, I was messing around and watching video of Barry Bonds and his toe tap. Then, I was toe-tapping and hammering balls anywhere I wanted, and I hit four barrels in the next scrimmage. Nothing has changed with my swing path or where my hands are, it just felt great, so I went with it.”
When Matt talks about hitting, it’s easy to see why he is so respected, with wisdom gleaned from playing with some of the best players of his era.
“I’m fascinated by the swing, the mechanics of the swing, how it’s tied to your brain, the approach, and how it all works together,” Matt said. “If your timing is not good, your swing will break down because when you’re late, your body freaks out; it knows. It’s going to change your front side a little bit, and the bat will get long. … I love to talk about the swing. I love to learn.”
After the tweaks to his swing, Ethan enters the draft with plus-plus power and has also improved defensively as a shortstop. He could be the top pick and should be off the board by no later than the No. 4 selection.
THE WILLITS FAMILY lives in Fort Cobb, Oklahoma, where they own and operate the Double Seven Ranch, run by Reggie’s wife, Amber. Fort Cobb has between 400 and 600 residents, depending on the source. When I spoke with Eli less than a month before he likely will become an early first-round MLB draft pick, he had helped move 200 bales of hay the day before.
This isn’t lost on scouts I spoke with, or even Matt Holliday, who said, “I admire the hard work that the farm takes. I appreciate their family’s work ethic and what it takes to operate a real farm.”
Eli has a full workload, between training, baseball games, practices and work at the ranch. He has grown an inch this year — he’s now up to 6-foot-1 — and added 8 pounds of muscle since I scouted him at a tournament in April. He also took on a heavy course load to finish high school in three years so that he could reclassify into the 2025 draft. Eli won’t turn 18 years old until December, making him the youngest prospect expected to be drafted this year, a historical factor in projecting success for high school prospects.
Reggie initially didn’t like Eli’s idea of reclassifying because Reggie had switched jobs, from coaching for the New York Yankees to the Oklahoma Sooners, to be home to be with his kids.
“That’s why I decided to get out of pro baseball, [Jaxon] was about to be a senior in high school, and I hadn’t been able to see him play. I wanted to experience his senior year,” Reggie said. “When [Eli] came to us and he wanted to reclassify, that was a hard decision for us as a family. At first, I said ‘no chance.’… I wasn’t really into that. It took some convincing.”
While the family was going through the reclassification decision, Eli’s success on the field during workouts with top college players from his father’s Oklahoma squad (his brother Jaxon is also the shortstop) helped convince Reggie that his son would be ready for the next level.
“We had some infielders get banged up, and we were short there at OU. We started throwing Eli out there so we had some leeway and didn’t run our guys into the ground in the fall. He got some at-bats. He’s been practicing with us since he was 14. He was getting lots of live at-bats by 15.”
Eli remembers those first few live at-bats. “The first hit I got, I was 14 years old facing a 24-year-old pitcher. I was just trying to do my best. I want to embarrass them, really … Age doesn’t matter, I want to show I’m the best player on the field.”
Eli did well in 15 to 20 scrimmage at-bats and that started to ease his dad’s concerns that his son would be overmatched by older competition. “I came home and told my wife, ‘I feel like he could play for us as a 15-year-old, so I’m pretty sure as a 17-year-old, he’d be all right if he reclassified.'”
Sooners right-hander Kyson Witherspoon is a projected early first-round pick, and Willits got to face that level of pitcher as a high schooler. Willits has held his own in these matchups, which helped him improve.
“I had more confidence going into the summer [showcase season] because I know I’m not going to see another Kyson on the mound there,” Eli said.
Similar to Ethan turning to his dad for swing advice, Eli gained invaluable experience while tagging along with his dad when he was a coach with the Yankees from 2018 to 2021.
Though watching Aaron Judge take BP up close sounds like a pretty cool perk of having a dad in coaching, the biggest influence might have come in learning from then-Yankees coach Carlos Mendoza, who is the New York Mets manager and regarded as one of the best infield coaches in the game.
“I wouldn’t be anything like what I am defensively without Carlos,” the younger Willits said.
Eli is a well-rounded player, one who is above average at almost everything on the field, except for power. He’s not the biggest, strongest or fastest player in this draft class, despite entering the draft as one of the best prospects.
THERE ISN’T A LOT of time for social activities as both players prepare for life as professional baseball players, but Willits and Holliday take a break from baseball by texting each other.
“We don’t talk about the draft. We leave baseball out of it, and just talk about our lives,” Willits said. “We both like to fish, so we talk about fishing a lot … Last summer is when we really started playing together and getting to know each other. Ethan’s now a great friend of mine.”
They were also Team USA teammates in Panama at the WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup Americas Qualifier.
“In Panama, we hung out every day before and after the games, the bus, the locker room, we’ve talked basically every day since then, but I didn’t see Eli in person again until Edmond [high school baseball tournament],” Holliday said.
The Edmond tournament turned into the scouting event of the year because Willits and Holliday participated. Stillwater and Fort Cobb-Broxton, where the two prospects play high school baseball, are a few hours apart and the schools compete in different classes. The round-robin event at Edmond Santa Fe High School’s field just outside of Oklahoma City provided a midpoint for scouts to see both players. Willits and Holliday impressed multiple high-level scouts in attendance from almost every team picking in the top half of the first round, even if their stats from those games weren’t gaudy.
When will the two run into each other on the diamond next? Holliday thought about the possibilities.
“That would be awesome if the next time we saw each other was the big leagues,” Holliday said. “Probably the minor leagues? Whichever team gets him is super lucky. He’s a stud.”
Willits and Holliday laughed when I asked about a potential friendly rivalry regarding who will be drafted higher. Both said that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“We’re both from Oklahoma. Oklahoma doesn’t get enough credit for the talent it produces,” Holliday said. “We’re super pumped for each other; we’re each other’s biggest fans. There’s no bad blood, no rivalry, no Bedlam feud.
“We’re just two boys that really love baseball and are proud of Oklahoma.”
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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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