By Jon Weisman
It was the strikeouts.
For nearly the entire night, Colorado’s hitters simply could not find the ball.
Right or wrong, when I imagined Clayton Kershaw throwing a no-hitter — and how often, how very often I imagined it — I imagined he’s get his seven or eight strikeouts, but the majority of the outs would be of efficient dispatch. Lots of first-pitch groundouts.
Instead, the strikeouts came by the bushel, so much so that with four outs remaining in the game, Kershaw had a chance to tie the franchise record of 18 strikeouts in a game, held by Sandy Koufax and Ramon Martinez.
Kershaw did break one record of some obscurity but significance nevertheless. His Game Score of 102 was the highest in Dodger history, higher even than Koufax during his 14-strikeout perfect game, and a concise testimony to his dominance. Only Kerry Wood, in his 20-strikeout game, had a higher Game Score.
He was the first player ever to strike out at least 15 without allowing a hit or walk.
And the 26-year-old lefty finished it off on only 107 pitches. There were nine groundouts, and only three balls in the air all night. I counted only one three-ball count for Kershaw tonight, to Josh Rutledge in the second inning.
Clayton Kershaw was walking on the sun.
Eric Enders (@nrmnbates)
If you have a ten-gallon hat, throw it to the sky!
What an unbelievable game. Giddy feeling won’t go away.
Michael Green
Like 99.999999999999999999999% of Dodgerdom, we don’t get the games (thanks a lot, Guggenheim Group and Time Warner). But I knew MLB Network would cut in, and it did, so I got to see it and revel in it. It was dominant. A couple of things, Jon:
1. This was The Vin’s 19th no-hitter, and there’s a calculation that he has broadcast 7% of all of the no-hitters in major league history. Wow.
2. The K was dominant (in more ways than one). But only one more K than Koufax, and remember that Kershaw had a big lead. Koufax didn’t. It would be interesting to compare how bad the opposing hitters looked, you know?
artieboy
Yeah very nice of MLB to allow us to not only see the end of the game but also to pick the Dodger broadcast. What a great job by Vinny!
Michael Green
Also, Bill Shaikin’s first two paragraphs were a brilliantly done take on The Vin’s incredible call of Koufax’s 9th (not to be confused with Beethoven’s, which wasn’t quite as good). Two cute things. One, Shaikin never says what he’s working from, and he doesn’t have to. Two, the transcript of that 9th is in The Baseball Reader, edited by Charles Einstein, who chose the best from The Fireside Book(s) of Baseball. In the introduction, Einstein said that transcript is the cause of the only critical mail he ever got, from a couple of people who said he had to have edited it because no broadcaster could be that brilliant ad-lib. Well, he was. He is. He’s 86. He can’t leave us.
oldbrooklynfan
It wasn’t a perfect game but it sure felt like one. It was probably the most dominant no hitter I ever saw. I can’t remember ever thinking of one so early in the game. .Hanley’s error really didn’t change much because it was no fault of Kershaw. I can’t say I forgot about the error but somehow I’ll always think of this no hitter as perfect.