On July 27, 1969, (then) 33-year-old Dodgers future Hall of Fame right-hander Don Drysdale won his 209th game to become the (then) winningest pitcher in Dodgers franchise history at 209-166, doing so in his 16 seasons and 518 games with the Dodgers. This was 19 years before (now) 35-year-old Dodgers ace and future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw was even born.

Drysdale’s seemingly unsurpassable record was eventually eclipsed by Dodgers Hall of Fame right-hander Don Sutton, who posted a remarkable 233-181 record in his 16 seasons and 550 games with the Dodgers.

On Saturday night, September 23, 2023, in front of a sold-out Dodger Stadium crowd of 52,704, Kershaw won his 210th career game (against only 91 career losses) to surpass Drysdale’s seemingly unsurpassable record to become the second most winningest pitcher in franchise history, doing so in his 16th season and (thus far) 424th game with the Dodgers to (now) trail Sutton’s all-time Dodgers wins record by only 23 wins.

“Tonight, I thought, from the outset, really good command and he and Austin (Barnes) work really well together,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Kershaw and the Dodgers 7-0 shutout of ‘The Hated Ones’ postgame. “I thought the sequencing was great and really efficient. Yeah, I couldn’t have asked for anything more from Clayton, and to see him get through that fifth inning with a little bit of stress was really good to see, as well.”

“At the end of the day you just have to execute pitches, you know, it’s as simple as that, regardless of what your philosophy is,” Kershaw told reporters postgame. “Obviously, you’d like to be at your peak, but to be able to put pitches where you want to and execute your off-speed pitches, hopefully you can get guys out that way, so, working on that as best I can.

“There were some hard hit balls tonight,” Kershaw added. “You know, obviously Peralta made that huge catch there in the fifth. There’s some things that maybe a little fortunate over all, but I’ll take it.”

When asked what passing Drysdale meant to him, Kershaw gave a very Kershaw-like answer.

“Wins are always great. I have a lot of respect for Don Drysdale and what he meant to this organization, so it’s a huge honor to be able to get to do that,” Kershaw answered. “But it’s just, like I said, it’s more of a product of the team you’re on. Wins are just being on good teams, being in the right spot. You saw tonight, you know, throughout five innings our guys scored a bunch of runs, our bullpen locked it down. So, just fortunate to be part of a good organization that wins so much.”

The greatness never ends.

Play Ball!

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