When Hall of Fame right-hander Don Drysdale pitched for the Dodgers – two years in Brooklyn and 12 years in Los Angeles – he was affectionally nicknamed ‘Big-D,’ not only because of his intimidating 6’-5”/190-pound frame, but also because of his overpowering dominance on the mound.
Drysdale finished his brilliant 14-year MLB career (all with the Dodgers) with a remarkable 209-166 record for a .557 win percentage and an even more remarkable .2.95 ERA in the 518 games in which he appeared, having started 465 of them. He also struck out 2,482 opposing batters while walking only 855 for a remarkable 2.91 K/BB ratio.
In Tuesday night’s 7-1 Dodgers rout of the (now) NL West third-place Arizona Diamondbacks in front of a Dodger Stadium crowd of 42,323, 35-year-old future Hall of Fame left-hander Clayton Kershaw won his 209th career game to tie Drysdale, but with only 91 losses for a .697 win percentage, for which he is currently MLB’s active wins leader and for which he now trails Hall of Fame Dodgers right-hander Don Sutton by 24 wins as the Dodgers all-time wins leader at 233.
“I think it just means I’ve been here for a long time and I’ve been part of some really great teams,” the always humble Dodgers ace told reporters following his 12th win of the season. “It’s great company. Drysdale and Sutton are two of the best, especially in Dodger history, so it’s cool.”
(Carrie Giordano)
Although the Dallas, TX native and Dodgers first round draft pick in 2006 out of Highland Park High School in Dallas allowed one run and three hits to the 20 Dbacks batters he faced on his 79 pitches (42 strikes), he wasn’t particularly pleased with his 20th start of the season, having struck out only five while walking three and hitting a batter.
“I don’t know if I ever got going, honestly. It wasn’t one, another one, that wasn’t super pretty,” Kershaw said with a laugh. “You know, I think it’s pretty impressive what our teams’ doing right now. I mean, those are two good pitchers in (Zak) Gallen and (Merrill) Kelly, and for us to put up that type of runs and just keep moving the line, everybody all the way down, from (Dodgers leadoff batter) Mookie (Betts) contributing, just a really impressive win tonight.”
With his five strikeouts on Tuesday night, Kershaw now has a franchise-best 2,927 in his (thus far) 16-year MLB career (all with the Dodgers), against only 658 career walks, for an insane 4.45 K/BB ratio.
“This guy is one of the greatest competitors I’ve ever seen. I think what I saw was will, compete, and just tenacity,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of his future first-ballot Hall of Famer. “He wasn’t going to be denied and clearly he didn’t have his best stuff, but he was going to get through five innings, find a way to give us a chance to win a ballgame. I just, when you think you can’t have more respect for a player, he goes out and does something like this.”
As Dodgers fans know all too well, Kershaw signed a one-year/$20 million contract extension with the Dodgers on December 5, 2022, and will again become a free agent at season’s end. And though there are some who believe that the current career Dodger will retire at the end of this season or possibly sign elsewhere to be closer to his Dallas, TX home, it is simply impossible to envision ‘Big-K’ in anything but a Dodgers uniform.
…just like ‘Big-D’ and the other ‘Big-K’ – fellow Hall of fame left-hander Sandy Koufax – who also happens to be a very close friend of Kershaw.
Play Ball!
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