I promise you, that headline is not a lie. In the beginning of any baseball season, starting pitchers have their pitch count watched very closely, and there is usually some kind of limit on how many pitches they’ll be allowed to throw. Baseball season is a long one, and over pitching one of your top guys can really end up screwing you if he gets injured early on. All those rules and limits should go right out the window, though, if a guy is throwing a freaking PERFECT GAME.
Through seven innings, Kershaw retired twenty-one batters and had thirteen strikeouts. He had only thrown eighty pitches, and in his first game back with the Dodgers (he resigned over the winter), they decided to screw him out of the opportunity to accomplish one of the most impossible feats in sports.
Let that statistic sink in. That means that in baseball history, .0001% of games have been perfect games. Aside from playoff performances, Kershaw has been considered one of the more dominant pitchers in the MLB for years, but he’s never thrown a perfect game. The last one to be thrown was Félix Hernádnez in 2012 – it’s been ten freaking years – and we didn’t even get to see Kershaw attempt it.
The Dodgers ended up winning the game 7-0 against the Twins, but the perfect game was soiled in the eighth inning when a single was let up for the Twins only hit of the game. It was a big win for the Dodgers, but a terrible look for their faith in Kershaw.
