Chasing 3,000 Ks

Plus, Shohei bobblehead night magic and other thoughts from the weekend

May 19, 2025

Hi everyone — 

Big sports weekend:

  • Scottie Scheffler won a PGA Championship yawner down the street from me.

  • Oklahoma City restored a bit of order in the NBA playoffs by taking out Jokic and the Nuggets in Game 7.

  • Edmonton once again carries the hopes of a Canadian nation that has not won the Stanley Cup since 17 days before Ariana Grande was born. (The Panthers carry the hopes of a Florida state that has not won the Stanley Cup since last year).

  • Paul Skenes summed up Pittsburgh baseball perfectly by throwing eight glorious innings and still taking the loss.

  • The Orioles descended deeper into the abyss.

  • The Red Sox unveiled Fenway Green City Connect uniforms that I imagine you will go buy right now.

It’s OK. I’ll wait.

A few other weekend thoughts:

  • Don’t look now … but suddenly the Braves are beginning to play some good baseball. They’re now over .500, and Ronald Acuña is coming, and coming fast, and the thought is he could be in the lineup by this Friday. Oh boy! Things are heating up in the NL East.

  • Nothing, however, is heating up in the American League East, where Aaron Judge is STILL hitting .400 (though barely) and Max Fried’s ERA is just above 1 and, yeah, that’s pretty much all that’s happening in the American League East. The Red Sox, Blue Jays and Rays are all meh … and the Orioles, whew, they’re rolling toward the most disappointing season in baseball history. Our pal Joe Sheehan predicted a few days ago that the Orioles would turn things around and be above .500 by the All-Star Break. I’m not seeing it.

  • How about those Twins! They won 13 in a row before finally falling to the Brewers on Sunday (thanks largely to Jackson Chourio robbing Royce Lewis). They’re still five games behind Detroit because the Tigers have the best record in baseball. The Guardians and Royals are right there, too. Yep, it’s like we all said at the start: The American League Central is the toughest division in baseball.

  • We saw Thunderbolts* over the weekend and, yeah, we all loved it — first Marvel movie we’ve loved in a long, long time. Even though (spoiler alert) depression is a major theme of the movie, it’s somehow still a rollicking good time with lots of jokes and laughter and superheroes actually saving people and, my gosh, is that so hard? I’ve talked at length about how fired up I am about the upcoming Superman because it really seems like James Gunn is going to make Superman fun again (plus: Krypto!). Maybe, finally, we can start getting a few joyful movies again to go along with the darkness.

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Kershaw and the 3,000 Strikeout Club

There are 19 pitchers who have struck out 3,000 batters in their careers. Let’s see if we can name them all. We’ll start with the ones I’m absolutely sure about.

  1. Nolan Ryan, obviously.

  2. Roger Clemens.

  3. Randy Johnson. I’ve got a piece coming soon that I think you’ll like … or hate, it can go either way. And Big Unit plays a major role in it.

  4. Tom Seaver. I’m just doing this in the order that they come to mind.

  5. Steve Carlton. He had the all-time strikeout record for a moment.

  6. Gaylord Perry.

  7. Walter Johnson. The OG.

  8. Bob Gibson.

  9. Justin Verlander.

  10. Max Scherzer. I remember Verlander and Scherzer’s 3K moments.

  11. Bert Blyleven. This is the trick one, right? But Blyeven had like 3,700 strikeouts if memory serves.’

  12. Greg Maddux. And not one of those 3K strikeouts was Tony Gwynn.

  13. Pedro Martinez. I believe he’s the only pitcher who reached 3,000 strikeouts without pitching 3,000 innings. Do I have that right? I’ll check after.

  14. Curt Schilling. I know he has 3,000 strikeouts because I’ve written it like 500 times when talking about his Hall of Fame case. He also retired with the best strikeout-to-walk ratio in modern baseball history.

OK, those are the ones I’m absolutely sure of. So there are, what, five more?

  1. Don Sutton. I’m pretty sure. He just pitched so many darned innings.

  2. Phil Niekro. Same as Sutton.

  3. Um, CC Sabathia got 3,000 strikeouts, right?

  4. I feel like I’m missing someone obvious. Oh, wait, Fergie Jenkins has 3,000 K. Definitely. Final answer.

  5. OK, who am I still missing? Tom Glavine? I don’t think he got to 3,000. I know Zack Greinke didn’t quite get there. I know Mike Mussina didn’t quite get there. Who am I missing? Um … OH, wait, it’s John Smoltz, right? I’m going to say John Smoltz.

Let’s see how I did … ah ha! Nailed it! Nineteen for nineteen! Well, Pedro is not the only member of the 3K club with fewer than 3,000 innings — Scherzer is on that list too. But otherwise, yep, I got all 19. Look at me!

Clayton Kershaw is trying to become pitcher No. 20 in the 3K Club.

Kershaw is 30 strikeouts shy of 3,000, and if his start on Saturday is any indication — he got beat up by the Angels for four innings, topped out at 88 mph, and struck out just two — it’s going to be a slog. On the one hand, 30 strikeouts doesn’t feel like a lot, and the Dodgers certainly have the resources to give an all-time legend like Kersh however many innings it takes to get to 3K. On the other hand, we just went through this with our guy Zack; he got to 2,979 strikeouts — blackjack away from glory — and ran out of time.*

*Zack deserves just a little bit more on this topic — he has the most strikeouts of any player NOT in the 3,000-club. Greinke was purposely NOT a strikeout pitcher for much of his career. He seemed to be a leading light in the the Bull Durham “strikeouts are fascist” school of thought, especially when he was young and almost never threw max-effort fastballs.

But toward the middle of his career, he started to see the value of the whiff; in 2011, he led the league in strikeouts per nine. He ended up striking out 200 batter in a season six times, which is up there with with Koufax and Drysdale and ahead of John Smoltz, Roy Halladay, Curt Schilling and Bobby Feller. Of course, Bob would tell you — and he’d be right — that he lost four years to the war and he surely would have struck out 200 each of those four seasons.

Anyway, six 200-strikeouts seasons is elite — only 27 pitchers have that many, and Greg Maddux only did it once in his career — and Zack had 2,809 strikeouts heading into his age 38 season. He seemed more or less assured of getting to 3,000.

But he struck out just 73 batters in 137 innings for the Royals in that age-38 season. That left him 118 Ks shy — he gave it a run in 2023. He threw just a little bit harder, and he fired his strikeout-pitch slider more than he had in years. But he ran out of juice after 142 innings and 97 strikeouts. I know he wanted to pitch some more, and if I’m not mistaken, he still hasn’t officially retired. But it does look like he will finish his career just short of 3,000.

He will absolutely get into the Hall of Fame anyway.

For most of my life, 300 wins has been the ultimate pitcher milestone. But with Justin Verlander still looking for his first victory of 2025 — he’s stuck on 262 wins — I don’t believe we’ll see another 300-game winner.

We will, however, see pitchers strike out 3,000. Here are the Top 11 active strikeout leaders after Verlander, Scherzer, and Kershaw:

  1. Chris Sale, 2,486

  2. Gerrit Cole, 2,251

  3. Charlie Morton, 2,087

  4. Yu Darvish, 2007

  5. Aaron Nola, 1,831

  6. Kevin Gausman, 1,811

  7. Sonny Gray, 1,775

  8. Patrick Corbin, 1,758

  9. Jose Quintana, 1,751

  10. Jacob deGrom, 1,719

  11. Zack Wheeler, 1,705

Unless something entirely unforeseen happens, none of these pitchers will get anywhere close to 300 wins. But you have to figure that at least one or two of them will get to 3,000 strikeouts. Sale seems to be rolling along, and after this year, he should be only two seasons away. We don’t know how healthy Cole will be when he returns, but he’s got a chance. Gausman and Wheeler stand out to me. deGrom likely won’t get there because he’s running out of time — it just blows my mind that he’s turning 37 in June — but his 11 strikeouts per nine innings puts him in the upper stratosphere.

Strikeouts really are the great statistical equalizer for today’s starting pitchers. No pitcher has thrown 250 innings in a season since (get this) 2011, when Verlander did it.

But there have been 27 seasons over that time with 250-plus strikeouts.

So I do think the club will grow, and I think that 3,000 strikeouts will become the new “Do Not Pass Go” Hall of Fame benchmark for starters. It hasn’t exactly been a benchmark in the past, even though 17 of the 19 members of the 3,000 clubs are in the Hall. Bert Blyleven, with 3,709 strikeouts, had to wait FOREVER for his ticket to get punched. Don Sutton, Phil Niekro, Fergie Jenkins — none of these guys was a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

*The two not in for their own reasons: Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling. Just a side note, but I fully expect the President of the United States to put some muscle behind Schilling’s Hall of Fame bid in the very near future. Just remember: When it happens, I called it.

But I think from here on in, anyone with 3,000 strikeouts will sail into the Hall first year.

Kershaw doesn’t need 3,000 Ks to sail in; he’s already a no-doubt, perhaps-unanimous Hall of Fame choice. But I suspect 3,000 strikeouts does matter to him. I don’t think that’s the only reason he’s still trying to get outs as a shadow of his former self, but I think it’s a reason. And why not? He’s so close.

Shohei and the Land of 1,000 Bobbleheads

Thursday night was Shohei Ohtani Bobblehead Night at Dodger Stadium, and, what do you know, Shohei smashed two home runs because, of course, he did — he’s Shohei and Shohei lives to blow our minds every single day if possible.

I mean, what are the odds that Shohei would smash two home runs on his own bobblehead day?

Actually … the odds are probably better than you would think.

When I was a kid, the big ballpark promotion was Bat Day. There were other cool giveaways — ball day, jacket day, cap day, T-shirt day, I think we did all of them because my father has always believed in getting value for his dollar — but bat day was the big one. I mean, they really used to give full-size (well, Little League-size) baseball bats to thousands and thousands of people. Were we a better society then? I mean, that obvious answer is: No. We were definitely NOT a better society then — for about 10,000 reasons. But it was a time when they could give bats to, say, 10,000 or 20,000 people and be confident that people would not use them to beat each other. That’s something.

Somewhere along the way, bats and balls gave way to knick-knacks and bobbleheads. The Guardians this year offer two of my favorite promotions. One is coming up in a few days, May 26, it’s “Mystery Reliever Jersey Day.” The first 15,000 people will get a jersey of a Cleveland reliever … but they don’t know if it will be Cade Smith’s jersey (yay!), Hunter Gaddis’ jersey (yay!), or Tim Herrin’s jersey (yay—?). This is reminiscent of the old bat days; my friend Dan’s first baseball game was bat day at Yankee Stadium in 1966. He obviously wanted a Mickey Mantle bat. He got a Bobby Richardson bat instead.*

*Hey, Bobby Richardson was a fine player, and he’s one heck of a nice man (he called me the other day!)

My other favorite Cleveland giveaway this year will be on Tom Hamilton Day — to honor Tom going into the Hall of Fame*. What are they giving out? A “Tom Hamilton commemorative item!” That’s all it says. I hope it’s a path of his clothing like they do with baseball cards.

*The Hall of Fame will keep saying that announcers who win the Ford Frick Award are not quote-unquote “Hall of Famers.” And I will keep writing that they are. We’ll see who blinks first!

But we’re getting away from the point here — the point is that Shohei Ohtani hit two home runs on his bobblehead giveaway day, and that definitely feels like rare air. And it is … except there are actually FOUR Shohei bobblehead days this year. I mean, you give Shohei four bobblehead days, it’s inevitable he’ll have a two-homer game in one of them at least.

That’s right: Four Shohei bobbleheads. In all, the Dodgers have 21 bobblehead days in 2025, more than one-quarter of all their games.

Here’s the list of upcoming bobbles!

  • Vin Scully bobblehead day (this Monday!)

  • Will Smith bobblehead day (two days later)

  • Tommy Edman bobblehead day (really? yep — June 2)

  • Blake Snell bobblehead day (June 16 — with toy scalpel to perform Tommy John surgery on him!)

  • Ice Cube bobblehead day (June 21 — he ain’t got no haters!)

  • Yoshinobu Yamamoto bobblehead day (July 2)

  • Ron Cey bobblehead day (July 18 — Penguin Forever!)

  • Fernando Valenzuela bobblehead day (the next day, July 19)

  • Teoscar Hernandez bobblehead day (July 22)

  • Rōki Sasaki bobblehead day (August 4)

  • Kobe Bryant bobblehead day (August 8, wait, Kobe gets one? Who isn’t getting one? Where’s Blake Treinen)

  • Blake Treinen bobblehead day (August 25 — oh, there he is).

  • Shohei Ohtani bobblehead day (August 27 — his third of the season)

  • Shohei Ohtani bobblehead day (September 10 — hit fourth of the season. And that should do it, no, actually, wait …)

  • Tyler Glasnow bobblehead day (September 18)

That’s all? Where’s my Manny Mota bobblehead!

Look, I’m actually great with this — the more giveaways for the fans, the better.

Thursday’s Shohei bobble was to commemorate his 50/50 season — I think it was supposed to represent the 50 stolen bases part (based on the fact that the bobblehead is of him sliding into a base). So while yes, he did hit two home runs to move into a tie for the homer lead, and yes, he’s hitting .310/408/.673 for the season now and all that. But he stole zero bases on Shohei Ohtani bobblehead day, too. Where’s the coverage of that?

No Place to Hyde

Yes, the Orioles fired Brandon Hyde this weekend. It wasn’t just about Adley Rutschman’s inexplicable collapse — but that didn’t help.

Slapping Faces in Cleveland

Local sports coverage is the best! They’re complaining in Cleveland because the Browns didn’t get a prime time game.

Kathleen’s Corner

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©Joe Posnanski