It didn’t take long – five pitches to the very first batter that Clayton Kershaw faced on Tuesday evening at Dodger Stadium to be exact. It was an 85 MPH slider to Washington Nationals second baseman Danny Espinosa – the fifth and final pitch of the at bat to Espinosa for strike three.

With that leadoff strikeout of Espinosa, Kershaw had officially completed his 1,000th inning pitched – not exactly a milestone such as a 200th or 300th career win or 2,000th or 3,000th career strikeout mind you, but quite an accomplishment nonetheless when you consider that Kershaw is only 25 years old. And though Espinosa, Kershaw nor anybody knew it at the time, it would be the first strike out of the eleven that Kershaw would throw on the night in what was arguable Kershaw’s finest outing of his 6-year MLB career.

Nationals second baseman Danny Espinosa strikes out in the first inning of Tuesday night’s game giving Kershaw his 1,000th career inning pitched. Kershaw would end the night with 1,008.1 innings pitched and narrowly missed his 7th career complete game shutout (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Oh sure, Kershaw has had closer games with more strikeouts and fewer than the four hits and the one walk that he allowed than in this 2-0 combined (by 1/3 of an inning) shutout, but he had the Nationals completely off balance all night long because all of his pitches were working and because he varied the speed of each of them. In fact, of the eleven different Nationals batters that Kershaw would face on the night, only four of them would not be struck out by Kershaw. So dialed in was Kershaw that he had a three-ball count to only three batters all night long – twice to the powerful Adam LaRoche in the 1st and 9th innings and the other to Eury Perez in the 7th inning.

And while many of the 51,729 fans in attendance at Tuesday night’s game booed Dodger manager Don Mattingly for taking Kershaw out of the game with two outs in the top of the 9th inning, Kershaw had already thrown a career-high 132 pitches. Were it not for a very tight strike zone called by home plate umpire Ted Barrett all night long, the seven-pitch first inning walk to LaRoche should have been a strike out after the fifth pitch. It was that at bat and the 10-pitch/6 foul ball at bat by LaRoche in the top of the 9th that prevented Kershaw from collecting his seventh career complete game shutout.

Kershaw allowed a three-ball count to only three batters all night in what was arguably the best pitching performance of his 6-year MLB career. (Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

With Kershaw now possessing the lowest ERA in all of baseball (1.40) and with the outstanding pitching by Korean superstar Hyun-jin Ryu, and with Zack Greinke returning to the Dodger rotation tonight, it is quite possible that the Dodgers have reached a pivotal turning point in their 2013 season as they begin their steep climb back into the NL West Division race.