There’s something almost cinematic about watching Clayton Kershaw stand atop a mound in 2025 — a figure who feels both of this game and somehow apart from it. As the Los Angeles Dodgers ace continues his steady march toward 3,000 career strikeouts, one can’t help but marvel at the enduring artistry of a man who, in many ways, represents the very soul of what starting pitching once was, and what it may struggle to become again.

On a cool night in Cleveland just days ago, Kershaw carved his way through the Guardians' lineup, not with overwhelming velocity, but with movement, precision, and an almost painterly sense of timing. He fanned three more, nudging his career total to 2,974 — another step toward a milestone reserved for a small fraternity of the game's most dominant arms. Only one pitcher in history, Walter Johnson, has paired so many strikeouts with a lower earned run average. And Johnson’s final pitch came nearly a century before Kershaw’s first.

But for Kershaw, the numbers — impressive though they are — aren’t the point. He acknowledges the milestone with humility, even humor. “Yeah, I’d be lying if I didn’t want to do it,” he admits. Yet, for him, the true reward lies in the company he would join: Verlander, Scherzer, and the select few who have mastered this grueling craft across decades. That brotherhood, built on both talent and tenacity, means more to Kershaw than any round number etched into the record books.

It’s what makes the current landscape of pitching both fascinating and, for purists like Kershaw, a bit unsettling. Today’s game values spin rates and triple-digit radar readings; every bullpen session is tracked, analyzed, and dissected. Prospects are trained like drag racers — Ferraris, as Kershaw describes — all built for speed but not necessarily for distance. Gone, he worries, is the development of the durable "minivan" workhorses who once routinely shouldered 200 innings or more.

Even in 2025, the evidence is sobering. No pitcher has thrown 115 pitches in a game this season. Entire rotations have grown accustomed to five-and-dive outings, with bullpens absorbing workloads that once belonged to starters. The injuries are mounting. Alcantara, Cole, Verlander, Scherzer — all victims of the modern system’s physical demands. And while young stars like Tarik Skubal, Zack Wheeler, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto offer glimpses of hope, they are the exception, not the rule.

​Kershaw, ever the realist, understands that the solution isn’t simple. It may take a franchise willing to radically reimagine development, to blend power with pitchability, metrics with feel, velocity with artistry. And perhaps, one day, the game will rediscover the value in what Kershaw represents. For now, as he edges closer to yet another historic plateau, we are reminded of the beauty of watching one of the last true craftsmen work — a living relic from an era when starters were kings, and seven, eight, even nine innings belonged to those who dared to master the full dimensions of the mound.