Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw — a three-time National League Cy Young winner and a World Series champion — announced Thursday he will retire at the end of the season.
Kershaw will make his final regular-season start Friday when the Dodgers host their division rival, the San Francisco Giants.
“On behalf of the Dodgers, I congratulate Clayton on a fabulous career and thank him for the many moments he gave to Dodger fans and baseball fans everywhere, as well as for all of his profound charitable endeavors,” Dodgers owner Mark Walter said in a statement. “His is a truly legendary career, one that we know will lead to his induction in the Baseball Hall of Fame.”
The Dodgers selected Kershaw, 37, seventh overall in the 2006 MLB draft, and he made his debut in the majors in 2008.
In 2011, Kershaw won his first Cy Young award, posting a 21-5 record with 248 strikeouts and a 2.28 ERA. He won the award two more times, in 2013 and 2014. From 2011 to 2014, Kershaw led the NL in ERA every season.
A towering left-hander, Kershaw is one of only 20 pitchers (and four lefties) to throw at least 3,000 strikeouts. He made 11 All-Star teams and won a Gold Glove in 2011.
While Kershaw was one of the most dominant regular-season pitchers of his generation, he struggled in the playoffs for much of his career.
His postseason ERA of 4.49 is considerably higher than his regular-season average of 2.54. In his first nine playoff appearances, Kershaw posted an ERA of lower than 3.00 only once.
In back-to-back World Series appearances in 2017 and 2018, Kershaw was 1-2 and allowed 16 runs in 26⅔ innings.
He broke through in the 2020 postseason, however, posting a 4-1 record in five starts — with a 2.93 ERA — helping lead Los Angeles to a World Series title.
Injuries also affected Kershaw later in his career.
He started at least 30 games six times in seven years from 2009 to 2015 but never reached that milestone again. He has started fewer than 25 games in each of the last five seasons, including only seven in 2024 — when the Dodgers won the World Series without him on the active roster.
Entering Thursday, Kershaw is 10-2 this season with a 3.53 ERA in 20 starts.
Los Angeles is 85-67 and in first place in the NL West.
