the k is for kershaw kountdown continues - giant slayer edition!

clayton kershaw made his sixth appearance of the 2025 season saturday night against the giants at dodger stadium, so i am pleased to be able to post another edition of the k is for kershaw kountdown as we track his progress to the 3,000 strikeout milestone.

coming off his best start of the season, kershaw registered another solid outing, going seven innings without allowing a run (matching the best outing by a dodger starter this season) and striking out five giants in the process. those 5 nocal's he k'd bring his season strikeout total to 20, and his career total to 2,988.

in honor of his performance, here are five cards (not seen on this blog before) from my collection to represent strikeouts number 2,984 through 2,988.

2,984 - 2024 topps finest

2,985 - 2014 topps wins leaders walmart blue parallel

2,986 - 2018 topps big league nl whip leaders gold parallel

2,987 - 2019 topps heritage 1970 scratchoff

2,988 - 2019 topps high tek

kershaw's night included allowing only three hits and just one walk to go with his five strikeouts. he faced the minimum number of batters through the first two innings (thanks to a walk-canceling double play) and then registered a strikeout in each of his last five frames. it was a low stress outing, as the dodgers piled on the runs early, and the giants did not mount any sort of rally against kershaw whatsoever.

kershaw's performance saturday night also reclaimed solo possession of first place in the national league west for the dodgers after they lost the series opener to the giants on friday and fell into a tie with their division rivals. it's worth noting that kershaw has struck out more players pitching against the giants than any other team, although that's not really a surprise given the old unbalanced schedules that teams would play.

here are some non-kershaw cards - starting with a 2007 topps moments & milestones russell (russ) martin card

martin was the catcher for kershaw's debut back in 2008. i would like to see kershaw asked to name the starters who were behind him that day because i sure as heck didn't recall a dodger named luis maza who started that game at second base.

seeing the 2019 topps heritage insert above referring to kershaw as "team captain" got me thinking about austin barnes. i recently read a quote from mookie betts - it may have been on a card back - that barnes (who served as kershaw's unofficial personal catcher for a few seasons) was the team captain of late. of course, he was recently released by the club. here's a 2021 topps big league rainbow foil parallel that features barnes and company as they celebrate the 2020 world series win

that is barnes, of course, in the catcher's gear. he is part of a very short list of dodger catchers (john roseboro, rick dempsey, and will smith are the others) to catch the final out of a dodger world series victory.

of course, you can't mention dodger catchers and kershaw without thinking of a.j. ellis. here is his 2013 topps gold parallel card

that features kershaw prominently.

kershaw is still in 20th place on the all-time leader board, and he will remain there unless he passes john smoltz (or is himself passed). smoltz has a career strikeout total of 3,084 and so kershaw is now 96 k's behind smoltz, but just 12 away from the 3,000 milestone. for what it's worth, he has moved past smoltz on the all-time wins leaderboard and is now tied with mark buehrle and rick reuschel with 214.

kershaw should be back on the mound later this week against the padres. know that when he makes his next start, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned! 

the k is for kershaw countdown continues - top 20 edition!

clayton kershaw made his fifth appearance of the 2025 season sunday afternoon against the cardinals at busch stadium number 3. so, i am pleased to be able to post another edition of the k is for kershaw kountdown as we track his progress to the 3,000 strikeout milestone.

this start turned out to be a big one, as kershaw not only notched his first win of the season, he registered seven strikeouts to bring his career total to 2,983 and move into 20th place all-time! here's the updated top 24 all-time strikeout leader tile from baseball reference:

no one in baseball history has ever accumulated as many strikeouts as clayton kershaw and not reached the 3,000 milestone!

in honor of his performance, here are seven cards (not seen on this blog before) from my collection to represent strikeouts number 2,977 through 2,983.

2,977 - 2022 topps steve aoki's baseball party

2,978 - 2019 topps finest

2,979 - 2018 topps big league wins league leaders gold parallel

2,980 - 2019 topps fire en fuego insert

2,981 - 2020 topps fire smoke and mirrors insert

2,982 - 2021 topps chrome ben baller icy

2,983 - 2021 topps gold label

i made sure to use that big league card for strikeout 2,979 as the card features both kershaw and zack greinke. for a brief moment in time (half of an inning), they were tied with each other at 2,979 career strikeouts, but strikeout 2,980 put kershaw in 20th place by himself.

against the cardinals, kershaw filled the role of stopper as the dodgers won the last game of the series after dropping the first two. he pitched five innings and walked no batters, and at one point k'd three consecutive batters. he did give up six hits and one run, but escaped a fifth inning jam featuring a run in and runners on second and third by striking out brendan donovan to end the inning. 

seven strikeouts over five innings was great to see after kershaw's first four starts resulted in fewer than 1 k/ip. it's worth noting that kershaw is one of only five pitchers among the top 20 in career strikeouts who has averaged more than 1 strikeout per inning pitched. his ratio is fourth among them, and the pitchers (in order from highest k/ip to lowest) are: max scherzer, randy johnson, pedro martinez, kershaw, and nolan ryan.

here's a non-kershaw card - it's a 2025 bowman hyeseong kim card

kim tripled in the top of the second to drive in two runs and deliver a somewhat rare (for the dodgers lately) hit with runners in scoring position. it's a small sample size, but kim is hitting over .400 so far as a major leaguer, and his speed has paid dividends on the bases and in the field - the latter evidenced by his great running catch of a masyn winn drive into the left-center field gap.

kershaw is now in 20th place on the all-time leader board, and he will remain there unless he passes john smoltz (or is himself passed - looking at you, chris sale). smoltz has a career strikeout total of 3,084 and so kershaw is now 101 k's behind smoltz, but just 17 away from the 3,000 milestone. for what it's worth, he is also now tied with smoltz on the all-time wins leaderboard with 213.

kershaw should be back on the mound later this week against the giants. know that when he makes his next start, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned! 

it's time for almost free stuff friday!

it's been a while since i've hosted one of these, and with cards from the quarry doing his sunday thing, i figured why not.

the "almost" in "almost free stuff friday" means that i am going to ask that you send me a card from my want list in return. you can choose to claim up to 9 cards from this post (to keep shipping at pwe-level) in exchange for at least one from my want list.  just claim the card(s) you want in the comments below and they will be reserved for you. email me your address and i will send the cards to you. i will trust that you will send me at least one card in return. easy enough, and this should keep the 'something for nothing' folks that we've all dealt with at bay. 

here are the cards - claim them in the comments!

random stuff:

here's some o-pee-chee from the post earlier this week:

1998 and 1999 pacific crown royale:

2000 pacific invincible aces and kings of the diamond:

2005 upper deck pastime pennants:

2008-2009 upper deck starquest

2010 topps yankees randomness

2011 topps lineage:

2013 topps target red parallels

2013 topps making their marks

2013 topps emerald parallels:

2015 topps 40 free agents

2016 topps perspectives:

2017 topps chrome pink red sox refractors

2018 national baseball card day

2018 topps big league parallels:

2019 topps stars of the game/superstars of baseball

a mashup of cards from a 2018 topps factory royals team set and a 2020 topps factory american league stars team set

2019 topps gypsy queen fortune tellers

and finally some 1952 in 2021

the judge card has a dinged corner, fyi

here are some non-sport inserts from 2019 topps allen & ginter

and how about some hockey?

ok, that does it for this week. make your claims! i'm looking forward to sending out some cards!

and it's all over now, 2007 topps chrome blue

it was just over four years ago that i posted about completing the 2011 topps chrome atomic refractor dodger team set and was turning my attention to completing the 2007 topps chrome blue refractor dodger team set.  at that time, i needed just four more dodger cards, and, for the last two years and three months, i have needed only one.  it has sat at the top of my 'nefarious 9' list of most wanted cards on the sidebar of my blogs for pretty much that entire time. last week, it arrived.

2007 topps chrome takashi saito blue refractor

i had multiple ebay saved searches for this card, with no luck, although i did recently see someone selling a lot of 151 blue refractors, and was considering asking them to pull this card out of the lot for me.  i would also periodically check comc and the beckett marketplace.  more frequently, i would search on sportlots which is where i ultimately found the card.  it had been listed for no more than a week, i would say.  it is strange to many i am sure, but there is so much joy in finding a card that has been so elusive. 

i've received some other blue cards recently:

2005 upper deck jayson werth blue parallel

jon of penny sleeves fame sent the werth with a few other cards. i had to do a little bit of research to figure out exactly what this was, which was good because i learned that the blue parallels were only part of series 2 that year. this fact that helped me understand that the card i have of milton bradley and thought was a blue parallel is really a retro parallel. so thanks jon!

1998 leaf rookies & stars raul mondesi true blue parallel

this one came from nick at dime boxes.  i did not know that these true blue parallels existed, but they fall right in line for dodger collectors such as myself.  they are not numbered, but are marked as "1 of 500" on the back.

nick sent some other colorful and chromy stuff:

2002 topps chrome dodgers team refractor

the 2002 topps chrome refractors are very nice. this one will go in my dodger stadium binder. it has a nice shot of the right field corner there behind the team with the stadium club restaurant in the upper right part of the card.

2005 topps chrome hee-seop choi red refractor

this is the first red refractor i've seen from 2005 topps chrome. it's cool and numbered to 25.  the thick borders of 2005 chrome lend themselves nicely to color parallels, but alas, there were no blue parallels that year.

i mentioned that the saito card at the top of the post was a-number 1 on my list of most wanted cards.  nick also knocked a card off of that same list with this 2018 topps big league corey seager card

 

and i picked up another in this 1997 fleer ultra darren dreifort card

little d looks strong! i appreciate the no batting gloves look, too.

so, with the 2007 blue refractor team set now complete, what's next?  well, i had already noted that i was going to target 2003 topps chrome in 2019, and i've finished the base set.  now, my primary team set focus will be on the 2003 topps chrome refractors, which just happen to come in blue, as dave roberts can attest:

hideo nomo's card in the set has been added to the most wanted list, but i also need a few more:

19 hideo nomo
91 adrian beltre
202 franklin gutierrez fy rc

and that doesn't include the chrome traded refractors:

t7 todd hundley
t73 rickey henderson
t99 fred mcgriff
t125 chin-feng chen
t162 james loney oros
t187 thomari story-harden fy rc
t205 eric riggs
t242 shane victorino fy rc

can you help a blogger out? this may take another 4 years...