Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — As regular readers of DodgersBeat know, this site stans Clayton Kershaw big-time. Speaking personally, it was Kershaw’s excellence that finally washed away the bad taste of the Frank McCourt years. He almost single-handedly made Dodger baseball great again. So whenever there’s a chance to sing the legend’s praises, you know we’re going to take it.
Clayton Kershaw accomplished something so ridiculous on Sunday that it deserves to be noticed. With his six innings of work, giving up three hits and just one walk, Kershaw pushed his WHIP (Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched) to UNDER 1.00. It now stands at 0.9996. That’s good for a flat-footed tie for third all-time with a guy named Ed Walsh, who pitched for the White Sox back in the dead-ball era. The pair trail only Cleveland’s Addie Joss (another dead-ball era hurler) and the Rangers’ new ace Jacob deGrom.
Joss is probably uncatchable by anyone, with a WHIP of 0.968, but Kersh and deGrom are very close, with Kershaw trailing the Rangers’ righty by only 0.0053 percentage points. So, depending on how things go this season, there could easily be a change between these two before the year is out.
However, to my mind, Kershaw’s already ahead of deGrom in this stat. Why? Volume. deGrom has compiled this stat in just over 1,300 innings. Kershaw, on the other hand, has pitched like this over 2,600 innings and counting. That’s practically double deGrom’s time on the mound. Much of this is due to Kershaw’s early call-up to the big leagues and deGrom’s injury-prone nature, but that kind of gigantic difference in innings pitched should not be ignored.
In case you’re curious about other Dodger greats, Sandy Koufax is 30th all-time (1.11), Don Sutton is 64th (1.14), and Don Drysdale is 72nd (1.15). Only Joss, deGrom, Kershaw, and Walsh have a WHIP under 1.00. The closest after that is Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera, who ended his legendary career with a WHIP just a tick over 1.00 with 1.0003.
Kershaw is already the all-time ERA leader among modern pitchers. He’s got a better ERA than Bob Gibson, better than Tom Seaver, better than Nolan Ryan, better than Justin Verlander, better than Pedro Martinez, and yes, better than Jacob deGrom. The guy is ridiculous.
And no, we’re not going to rehash postseason disappointments right now. There were a lot of reasons for that, which could fill a book. Suffice it to say, Kershaw’s reputation as a “choker” in the postseason should have been put to bed a long time ago.
The key to winning championships is winning games. The key to winning games is to limit the opponents’ runs. The key to limiting the opponent’s runs is to limit the number of guys that get on base in the first place. And with just one exception, Clayton Kershaw has done that better than any other pitcher in a hundred years.
G. O. A. T.
