The 3,000-strikeout club, one of baseball's most exclusive, has a new member, and it's Clayton Kershaw.
Kershaw became just the 20th pitcher to reach the 3,000-K mark, adding to this list (date of 3,000th strikeout in parentheses):
Walter Johnson (July 22, 1923)
Bob Gibson (July 17, 1974)
Gaylord Perry (Oct. 1, 1978)
Nolan Ryan (July 4, 1980)
Tom Seaver (April 18, 1981)
Steve Carlton (April 29, 1981)
Fergie Jenkins (May 25, 1982)
Don Sutton (June 24, 1983)
Phil Niekro (July 4, 1984)
Bert Blyleven (Aug. 1, 1986)
Roger Clemens (July 5, 1998)
Randy Johnson (Sept. 10, 2000)
Greg Maddux (July 26, 2005)
Curt Schilling (Aug. 30, 2006)
Pedro Martinez (Sept. 3, 2007)
John Smoltz (April 22, 2008)
CC Sabathia (April 30, 2019)
Justin Verlander (Sept. 28, 2019)
Max Scherzer (Sept. 12, 2021)
Clayton Kershaw (July 2, 2025)
Three thousand strikeouts is a mark that requires excellence and longevity, which means there's a good number of legendary aces who aren't listed above (e.g. Tom Glavine, Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Robin Roberts, Dwight Gooden, Jim Palmer, etc.). In fact, the 3,000-K fraternity is markedly smaller than baseball's other marquee clubs; 39 position players have stolen 500 bases, 33 have knocked 3,000 hits and 28 have clubbed 500 home runs, and 24 pitchers have won 300 games.
Kershaw set quite the pace initially. Being just 20 years old at the time of his 2008 debut meant getting his 1,000th strikeout not long after his 25th birthday (April 17, 2013) and reaching 2,000 in 2017, when he was 29. Even hampered by injuries in his early 30s, he ended the 2023 season at 2,944 career strikeouts -- those final 56 would take the better part of two years.
It wasn't glamorous, but the arduous final leg of Kershaw's journey to 3,000 strikeouts was representative. Here's a little more context for just how hard it is for a pitcher to get there:
• Walter Johnson was the first to notch 3,000 strikeouts when he punched out fellow pitcher Stan Coveleski on July 22, 1923. Baseball then had to wait nearly 51 years to the day until the next pitcher, Gibson, reached the mark on July 17, 1974. In comparison, only 11 years passed until Jimmie Foxx joined Babe Ruth as the second member of the 500-homer club in 1940. It took 17 years for Honus Wagner to join Cap Anson in the 3,000-hit club, and just two years for Tim Keefe to join Pud Galvin as the second 300-win pitcher.
• Baseball fans have been spoiled in recent years watching CC Sabathia, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer cross 3,000 strikeouts in a three-year span from 2019-21 and Kershaw following not far behind in 2025. But the sport has had some droughts: 11 years passed between John Smoltz in 2008 and Sabathia in 2019. There was also a 12-year gap between Bert Blyleven (1986) and Roger Clemens (1998).
The 300-win club had one gap of nearly 13 years between Ryan (1990) and Clemens (2003), but has not seen another void of at least 10 years since the 20-year span from Lefty Grove in 1941 to Warren Spahn in '61. Meanwhile, the 500-homer club's longest wait between members over the last half century was the nine-year wait from Mike Schmidt (1987) to Eddie Murray (1996). The longest gap between 3,000-hit members in that span was seven years between Rod Carew (1985) and Robin Yount (1992).
• More pitchers have twirled a perfect game (24) in modern history than compiled 3,000 strikeouts; in fact, the most recent perfect game was thrown in June 2023, just about halfway between Scherzer and Kershaw's 3,000th K's.
• While it's true that Kershaw is pitching in a strikeout-rich era, he didn't necessarily start in one. The Major League strikeout rate was 17.5% percent in 2008, his first Major League season. That was also the year when strikeout rates began rising in every season, reaching a peak of 23.5% in 2020 and now hovering at about 22% in 2025.
• Kershaw's current career 27.3% strikeout rate is the 4th-highest among pitchers in the 3,000-K club, trailing only Scherzer (29.3% as of July 2, 2025), Johnson (28.6%) and Pedro Martínez (27.7%).
• Who’s next to 3,000 K's after Kershaw? Unfortunately, another gap is looming. Chris Sale, at 2,528 at the time of Kershaw's 3,000th strikeout, is the next active player on the list, but at 36 years old and with a long injury history of his own, it certainly won't be easy. The best shot might actually belong to the next guy on the list, Gerrit Cole, who will miss the entire 2025 season but will return with 2,251 career strikeouts and a brand-new elbow.
• The biggest hurdle for aspiring 3,000-K pitchers used to be that hitters simply didn't strike out all that often. Now, it's a question of workload.
Even in 2025, innings totals haven't quite recovered to pre-2020 levels, which were already pretty low. Only 15 pitchers reached 200 innings in 2019; there were 17 total between 14 pitchers from 2022-24. Meanwhile, the members of the 3,000-K club have combined for 261 200-inning seasons (not including Kershaw), for an average of roughly 14 such campaigns per pitcher. In fact, the club contains 13 of the top 29 pitchers in history for most 200-inning seasons compiled, topping out with the all-time leader Don Sutton at 20.
Kershaw currently has the fewest 200-inning seasons (five) of anyone in the 3,000-strikeout club (the previous record-holder, Scherzer, has had six), but both technically have years remaining to increase their totals. Pedro Martinez needed only seven 200-frame seasons to punch his ticket into the club.