It’s no secret that Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher Clayton Kershaw is having a terrific season, posting an 11-2 record with a 1.79 ERA, 145 strikeouts to 9 walks, and 5.5 Wins Above Replacement from FanGraphs (4.6 from Baseball Reference). That’s also building off a 2014 season that saw him win the NL Cy Young and a 2015 season that saw him win both the Cy Young and the NL MVP, and it has SI senior baseball writer Tom Verducci calling his last few years “the greatest pitching run of all time.” Verducci called in to The Dan Patrick Show Wednesday to discuss Kershaw’s sore back, which has him visiting a specialist, but wound up discussing where he thinks Kershaw fits in history (starting about 0:30):

“With Kershaw, who is the gold standard, I actually think, Dan, I think he’s on the greatest pitching run of all time,” Verducci said. Patrick asked “All-time?” and Verducci said, “Yeah, I’d say that, because I’m not going to count Walter Johnson, that’s the dead-ball era, but in terms of Pedro [Martinez], Randy Johnson, Sandy Koufax, the volume of what this guy is doing, pitching 230 innings every year with that strikeout-to-walk ratio, is just crazy. Here’s my best stat on Clayton; he’s been pitching now for eight years, his career ERA has lowered every single year. That’s just not supposed to happen when you pitch as much as he does.”

The Dan Patrick Show airs Monday to Friday at 9 a.m. Eastern on NBCSN, AT&T’s Audience, and radio affiliates.

[DanPatrick.com]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.