SB Nation • 8 min read

Clayton Kershaw goes out on top

Clayton Kershaw struck out seven and pitched scoreless baseball into the sixth inning in the final regular season start of his major league career, in the Dodgers’ 6-1 win over the Mariners on Sunday in Seattle

to close out the regular season.

Kershaw allowed only four hits and a walk in Sunday’s series finale. He didn’t strike out anyone in the first inning but did induce a pair of popouts. Then Kershaw struck out at least one in each of the next five frames, with his seven strikeouts tied for his second-most in a start this season.

He faced only one batter in the sixth inning, and struck out Eugenio Suárez, finishing him off with an 85.5-mph slider for the final pitch of Kershaw’s regular season career. Freddie Freeman, who was already out of the game by this point, made the walk to the mound to relieve Kershaw from the game, with the two future Hall of Famers embracing on the field.

This was the 102nd scoreless start of Kershaw’s career, which as Stephen Nelson noted during the SportsNet LA broadcast, is more than Kershaw’s 96 career losses.

Kershaw earned his 223rd career win on Sunday, winning his seventh straight decision to close out his career. The Dodgers have won 302 of Kershaw’s 451 career starts. He finished his 18th and final season at 11-2 with a 3.36 ERA and was second on a division-winning Dodgers team in both starts (23) and innings (112 2/3).

Kershaw had his career WHIP below 1.000 as late as April 29, 2023 — he was at 0.9977 through 2,619 career innings over 407 games, including 404 starts — and ends his illustrious career with a 1.018 WHIP in his 2,855 1/3 innings. That’s the third-lowest in the live-ball era (since 1920) among pitchers with a minimum of 1,000 innings, behind only Jacob deGrom and Mariano Rivera, whose combined innings total 32 fewer than Kershaw.

Plenty of support

Freeman for two and a half months hit one home run in 278 plate appearances, including a stretch of 179 PA without for the longest homer drought of his career. But starting on July 30, Freeman ended on a power drive with 14 home runs in his final 52 games and 223 plate appearances, including a two-run shot in the third inning on Sunday.

Hyeseong Kim has been active for all of September but has mostly done a lot of sitting, totaling just …20 plate appearances. Sunday was only his sixth start of the month, including two this weekend after the Dodgers already clinched. But he made the most of his playing time on Sunday, opening the scoring with a two-run home run off Bryce Miller in the second inning.

Shohei Ohtani added some insurance with a solo home run in the seventh inning, breaking his own Dodgers record with his 55th home run. Ohtani had three hits on the day, including a double and two more runs scored, the latter extending his modern Dodgers record of 146 runs, two shy of Hub Collins’ franchise mark set in 1890.

Landon Knack was called up earlier Sunday to fill innings, and did exactly as asked. He followed Kershaw on the mound in the sixth inning and finished the game. Knack allowed a single run but got the final 11 outs of the game, seven by strikeouts conveniently enough, the 12th different Dodgers pitcher to earn a save this season. It’s the first Dodgers save of exactly 11 outs since Matt Young on July 5, 1987 at Pittsburgh.

Knack also had a four-inning save on August 13, 2024.