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! 

the k is for kershaw kountdown - seeing reds

yes, the kountdown to 3,000 strikeouts for clayton kershaw continues as he pitched against the reds on thursday. he struck out 9 batters to give him 93 strikeouts on the season. those 9 reds that he k'd increased his career total to 2,900.

in honor of his performance, here are 9 cards to represent strikouts 2,892 through 2,900.

2,892 - 2014 bowman platinum gold 

2,893 - 2015 panni prizm red baseball prizm

2,894 - 2016 bowman's best refractor

2,895 - 2017 topps galler artist proof

2,896 - 2018 topps legends in the making blue 

2,897 - 2019 topps inception

2,898 - 2020 topps holiday

2,899 - 2021 topps gold label class 1 black

2,900 - 2022 topps update all-star game black

kershaw remains in 21st place on the all-time leader board, and will remain there until he passes zack greinke, who struck out 3 earlier in the week to increase his strikeout total to 2,932. kershaw is now 32 k's behind greinke and an even 100 behind the 3,000 milestone. 

kershaw's start against the reds was his second straight start with 9 strikeouts, and included seven scoreless innings to boot! he got phenom elly de la cruz twice, showing that the reds' prospect is human after all.

it would seem that kershaw's next start would come this week against the white sox. regardless of when he makes his next start, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned!

when the card comes second

sometimes i will give more weight to a random card at a shop or show that i am on the fence about purchasing if it is in a semi-rigid holder. in fact, there are many bloggers and friends of blogs who have cards in your collections partly because i saw a cheap vintage card of your team or player in a semi-rigid holder at a show or shop. i prefer semi-rigid holders to toploaders because they are easier to ship cards in using envelopes. back when i was doing a lot of ttm, i was always on the lookout for semi-rigid holders, and if i were vacillating about buying a card from the vintage bargain bin or not, a free semi-rigid holder would usually tip the scales in favor of the sale. heck, i even bought a binder of cards at a card show for cheap because the cards were in ultra pro platinum sheets. the cost of the thing was less than the sheets alone were worth! this opening paragraph will hopefully make sense later on...

i made an unplanned stop at one of the local card shops for a few minutes in mid-january and had just enough time to pull $42 worth of singles, for which i was charged $35. this included just over 40 nickel cards - most of which were cards from 2022 topps cosmic chrome. there was only one dodger in the bunch, however - this walker buehler

the other nickel dodger to be found was a 2022 topps holiday freddie freeman

card, who was joined by a holiday double play turn courtesy of jonathan india

i found a couple of 2022 stadium club parallels in the one nickel box i dug partway through, but was most pleased to find a regular old buster posey 

for the final tribute collection.

the majority of the other cards purchased were hall of famer singles priced at a quarter each and some dodger and braves insert and parallel singles that were also 4 for a buck. there were some highlights there, including a hank aaron insert 

numbered to 50 

and a fergie jenkins gypsy queen mini from 2013 numbered to 99

there were a good variety of dodger inserts that i brought home, but i didn't scan them all. i did scan this 2020 panini prizm numb3r5 game insert of cody bellinger

so that will have to do. i also added a fifty cent joc pederson blue chrome refractor from 2021 to my stack. big spender. those 63 cards came to a total of $16.

the rest of the cards i purchased came from the 50% off auto/relic bin. one was a dodger prospect auto, and i found a couple of 2022 dodger relics, plus a couple of triple threads relics for some trading partners. the last card i added to the stack was this one:

i did not know who jahmai jones was, and i didn't (still don't) know of anyone who is looking for a 2021 topps gold label gold framed autograph of him, but the fact that the card was in a thick one-touch convinced me to pull the trigger. it turns out that jones is in the dodger organization now, rehabbing from tommy john surgery and expected back possibly late in the 2023 season.

i didn't use one-touch cases until i started my hall of famer collection, really. now i have all of those cards in one-touches along with a few of my steve garvey cards. i know i can use this case for one of the thicker garvey cards i've acquired recently, and so the autograph card was just a bonus.

i was pretty pleased with what i walked out of the store with given the limited time i had. no cards in semi-rigid holders this time, but there's always next time. hopefully.

'tis the season for red and green (and gold)

last year, collecting cutch was showing off red and green cards in advance of christmas. i had a couple of cards in mind to share at the time, but didn't receive one of them until closer to new year's. so, here we are about 51 weeks later.

2015 panini donruss signature series steve garvey red parallel #/25

and 2015 panini donruss signature series steve garvey green parallel #/10

waiting on this post for a year allows me to add a gold card, too. this is a 2021 topps gold label garvey autograph

it's gold framed in addition to being from the gold label release. there are a bunch of parallels, but i've not really chased any.

merry christmas to all and to all a good night!