‘Who’s going to duplicate Mike Leach?’: Zach Arnett is doing things his way at Mississippi State
STARKVILLE, Miss. — The advice Mike Leach shared with Zach Arnett during quiet moments and late-night phone calls was invaluable. Granted, Arnett couldn’t always tell where a conversation with his boss was heading — his degree in history and minor in political science came in handy sometimes — but there was often a nugget of wisdom to be found in there somewhere if he stuck with Leach long enough.
Which got Arnett thinking one afternoon last month. The Mississippi State head coach popped up from a seat in his office and walked over to his desk. He pulled open the top right drawer, clutched a handout Leach gave the staff and waved it around.
Once or twice a year, he said, they’d read through Leach’s curated thoughts on coaching. There’s a bit about coaches failing players rather than players failing coaches. “What I really like about them,” Arnett said, “is they force you as a coach to flip the mirror onto yourself.”
When he first read the handout, shortly after being hired as Leach’s defensive coordinator in 2020, it was as if he’d been struck by lightning. Coaches are notorious for buying up volumes of books on leadership, Arnett said, and Leach found a way to boil it down to four pages of bullet points.
Arnett turned it over in his hands and smiled knowingly. He didn’t want to give away specific quotations; he thinks the insights inside are so valuable. “It’s a lifetime of common sense wisdom,” he said.
And it’s guiding him on this new, unexpected journey, as the 36-year-old balances honoring a football legend and one-of-a-kind character with forging his own identity.
The flowers are long gone, but other remembrances of Leach remain in Starkville. The pirate flags that wave on front porches. The different twists on the Jolly Roger, some with swords instead of crossbones. It turns out you can put an eye patch on pretty much anything; it’s become another way of saying, “In loving memory.”
When players leave a morning weight-lifting session last month, they do so wearing black workout shirts with “Swing your sword” emblazoned across the front.
A favorite phrase of Leach’s rings in Arnett’s ears: “Never take counsel of your fears. Emphasize your strengths.”
Some coaches might fear replacing a legend. Some, especially first-time coaches like Arnett, might feel compelled to keep everything exactly the same.
“Who’s going to duplicate Mike Leach?” he asked. “There’s no chance in hell.”
ARNETT ACKNOWLEDGED THE irony. A first-time head coach taking over for an icon, and that icon, who he spent the past three years working for as his defensive coordinator, didn’t actually want him as his first choice.
No, Leach had his sights set on a lesser-known football innovator he’d admired from afar: Rocky Long, the 73-year-old former head coach who created the 3-3-5 stack defense. The only reason Arnett got the job, he says, is because “Coach Long decided this wasn’t for him.”
That, and Arnett was the next best thing. He played linebacker for Long at New Mexico, racking up 200 career tackles and earning a spot on the academic all-conference team four times. He then got his start in coaching as a graduate assistant on Long’s staff, working his way up to defensive coordinator. He’d actually just left San Diego State to take the DC job at Syracuse when Leach called.
It was unexpected and awkward packing up after only a few weeks in New York, but the opportunity was too perfect to turn down. Not only could he learn from Leach when he was around, he could learn from the times when he wasn’t. Because Leach was too busy calling plays and running quarterback meetings to fuss over the defense, managing that side of the ball was left almost entirely to him.
Arnett was a nominee for the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant each of his first two seasons at State. His defenses gave up the fourth fewest yards in the SEC from 2020 to 2022. He was also a member of the AFCA 35 Under 35 Coaches Leadership Institute.
“There was a tremendous amount of freedom,” Arnett said of working under Leach. “But it was very educational from the way he sees the game, his ability to simplify the game. I think coaches are notorious for our ability to overcomplicate stuff. You turn football into a calculus problem for your players, and usually that shows up on film. You got a bunch of guys not just reacting and playing fast. You can see the wheels spinning, and he’s the exact opposite of that.”
Arnett sums up the beauty of the Air Raid.
“Simply put: Run where they ain’t, look for open space,” he said, laughing. “That’s pretty damned ingenious.”
What Arnett admired most about Leach and Long — aside from their ability to simplify their respective schemes — was their willingness to defy convention.
Some coaches say you shouldn’t spread the field with four receivers and throw the ball 70 times a game. It’s not balanced. Well, Leach dared to ask what was balanced about not getting everyone the football? He wound up convincing a generation of coaches like Lincoln Riley and Sonny Dykes to see it his way.
It might have been tempting to hire one of Leach’s many former assistants and keep the offense as is, but Arnett wanted to do things differently.
“And I don’t think [Leach] would necessarily have a problem with that,” he said, “because he would want me to run a program that’s in the vision that I see as best fit for its future.”
Mississippi State senior deputy athletic director for compliance Bracky Brett, who was interim AD when Leach died, says he never hesitated handing over the reins to Arnett. When he offered him the job on a permanent basis, he told him, “Total control of the program is on you.”
Brett marveled at how Arnett was able to lead the team through such a difficult time — how he was a stabilizing force, holding the locker room and the roster together.
“I always felt like if we had not made the move that we made, it would’ve cost us probably some kids on signing day and some kids in the portal,” Brett said. “It would’ve set this football program back two years.”
Three weeks after Arnett and Mississippi State agreed to a four-year, $12 million contract, the Bulldogs beat Illinois in the Reliaquest Bowl, coming from behind with 16 unanswered points in the fourth quarter. The scene on the field in Tampa that day was unbelievable, Brett says, an emotional release.
0:35
Will Rogers celebrates bowl win by waving flag in memory of Mike Leach
Following Mississippi State’s bowl win, Will Rogers waves the “Mike” flag in memory of late coach Mike Leach.
And, looking back, Brett appreciated how Arnett waited for what came next. After he’d finished what Leach had started and they’d returned home, Arnett went to work building the program his way. He scrapped the traditional Air Raid and overhauled the entire offensive coaching staff. Leach’s offense and Leach’s guys were suddenly gone.
Brett is crystal clear: “Mike will be remembered, loved and revered here a long time. We’re not going to forget him in any shape, form or fashion.”
But, he said, Arnett can’t coach with a ghost looking over his shoulder.
“You’ve got to make the program yours,” Brett says. “If you’re gonna be the head coach and your livelihood and your salary depends on winning, you’ve got to do what you think is best to win. And he’s brought in some people on his staff that I think people may question. But I know one thing: They’re damn good football coaches”
KEVIN BARBAY LEANED forward in his chair overlooking the practice fields and looked down at his hands, searching for the right words.
“You know, it’s not pressure,” he said, “but I do understand the circumstances of coming in and replacing the legend of Mike Leach.”
A few months ago, Barbay was the offensive coordinator at Appalachian State. He had no connection to Leach, to Arnett, to Mississippi State, to the Air Raid. None of it. He got his start as a graduate assistant at Baylor where they ran the cleverly named Bear Raid, and even then Barbay was working on the defensive side of the ball at the time.
Barbay is a former high school coach, a Texas native, who played quarterback for Doug Williams at Grambling State and graduated from Lamar. So to be the person at 40 years old asked to step in and overhaul an offense that’s so synonymous with Leach was, well, something.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that initially when Coach [Arnett] called me that it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, wow. That’s gonna be a job, replacing Mike Leach,'” Barbay said. “But it does help me a little bit just talking to myself about, ‘You’re replacing a legend, but you are not that legend. And don’t try to be who you’re not.'”
Barbay’s offense will still feature a lot of four-receiver sets and plenty of passing. But it will also feature the running back and play-action and a position that’s been absent the past three seasons: tight end.
Time will tell how effective the offense will be, but it promises to look more diverse than Leach’s Air Raid.
“Really right now it’s about identifying what our guys do well and then just putting those guys in the right situations and in the right formations,” Barbay said. “Right now it’s all discovery.”
Barbay chuckled as he recited the depth chart. It’s like an island of misfit toys, he says. “We have to be patient.”
Take the lack of tight ends — as in zero on the roster he inherited. This spring, they picked a defensive lineman, a receiver and a linebacker to try out at the position. And they went out and signed a pair of transfer tight ends in Geor’quarius Spivey from TCU and Ryland Goede from Georgia, who will arrive in the summer.
The good news is Barbay doesn’t have to wonder who his quarterback will be. Will Rogers returns with 33 career starts under his belt. He’s already the SEC career completions leader (1,159) and holds school records for career passing yards (10,689) and career passing touchdowns (82).
Rogers is going to be asked to throw the ball more downfield and move around the pocket more this coming season. Barbay says he’ll have more options to pull the ball and run as well.
“Will’s biggest attribute is he’s one of the most competitive people,” Barbay said. “In a short amount of time, he has proven to me how competitive he is. He hates losing, he hates incompletions. So, to me, it doesn’t really matter what you ask him to do, he’s gonna perfect it.”
So far, Rogers is happy with the offense, but it’s been an adjustment. The Air Raid is all he’s known since high school. And no one on the team was closer to Leach than him. He was more than a coach. He was a friend.
“I’ve just kinda just put my head down and gone to work,” he said. “I haven’t really thought about it too much, you know? On my own time I’ll think about it every now and then, but I think the competitor in me, I’m always just trying to put this team in the best position to win and just continue to compete and continue to try and get better every single day.”
With his experience and production, he could have left after last season via the transfer portal and had plenty of suitors. There are more than a few Leach disciples out there who could use a quarterback to run the Air Raid.
Rogers, who grew up two hours from Starkville, stayed.
“A lot of people wanna say a lot of different things and start rumors and things like that,” he said. “But for me, I was just wanting to finish it out with some of the guys that we’ve been here with for four years, just kind of finish what we started here at Mississippi State.”
DON’T EXPECT ARNETT to provide a carefully crafted thesis on which Halloween candy is best or what college mascot would win a WWE style Royal Rumble. He may have a few interesting theories on life (local or extraterrestrial), but thus far he’s keeping them to himself.
Mike Leach, Zach Arnett is not. Check back in 25 years from now, but it’s hard to imagine Arnett becoming the quixotic, quotable character that his predecessor was. His personality is more no-nonsense. Included in Mississippi State president Mark Keenum’s statement announcing Arnett’s hire was this telling line: “He brings great drive and intensity to the task.”
Mississippi State is a program that’s going in a different direction, a direction that fits Starkville’s personality as a working class town in rural Mississippi. The university was founded in large part as an agricultural school. Arnett’s house sits on five acres. He has chickens. Horses graze on the property. He cuts his own grass — or he did back when he was a coordinator and had the time.
Brett loves the fact that his head coach owns a zero-turn lawn mower. He summed up his approach in a single phrase: “Blue collar.”
“I want us to look like a tough, hard-nosed football team,” Arnett said, “who still does all the things that good football teams do: You play clean football; you don’t turn the ball over; hopefully, you create takeaways; you create explosive plays on offense; you limit ’em on defense; you win the field position battle on special teams; all that stuff. But just simply, I would hope when you turn on the film you see a team who looks like they play the game with some energy and some excitement.”
Tony Hughes, who has coached at Ole Miss, Southern Miss and Jackson State, said Mississippi State has a reputation for attracting fighters, for having a chip on its shoulder, for playing downright angry.
“Zach is that, but from New Mexico” Hughes said.
Arnett grew up in Albuquerque overlooking the Sandia-Manzano Mountains. In addition to linebacker, he played some fullback back in the day, too. So he’s not afraid of taking or delivering a big hit. “That’s what he believes in and that’s what he likes,” Hughes said. “I want a football team that exemplifies that personality, because that is the only chance you have to win and be successful here.”
Says Rogers: “I think we’re gonna be a really tough team to beat, and just a tough team in general come fall.”
Arnett may not look or sound anything like Leach, but he shares an old-school mentality that’s appreciated here. In fact, Rogers said, he’s a little more diligent about meetings starting on time. And when they do, “It’s all ball from there.”
He may not walk to campus regularly like Leach did, but don’t be surprised if you see Arnett on the side of the road by accident. He recently bought a 1960 Ford F-100, which promptly broke down on him during a visit to campus with his wife and kids.
A good samaritan helped out and gave him a jump. Before he left, the stranger said, “I gotta ask: Are you the head football coach at Mississippi State?”
That won’t be a question for much longer.
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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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