The mailman this week brought me two amazing baseballs, one of which will be the subject of this post; the other will come soon.

While Hit By Pitch balls are my niche in game-used baseballs, I also dabble in Clayton Kershaw items. I was able to acquire a ball from the Giants this week that has some historical significance.

Kershaw is at the stage of his career where he is passing folks on various statistical charts, and on 8/27/2020 he won his 173rd career game by defeating the Giants. The win made him the winningest left-handed pitcher in MLB history. It’s sort of a convoluted stat as it’s percentage driven and the number changes, but it is history.

Anyway, the ball that arrived today is the first ball Kershaw used that day against the Giants. The ball was used for warm up pitches and then for eight pitches spanning three batters.

Giants lead off hitter Mike Yastrzemski saw three pitches, the third of which he rapped into center field for a single – his 136th career hit. The ball was fielded by Cody Bellinger and thrown back to the infield where it was tossed to Kershaw for the next hitter.

Wilmer Flores saw two pitches from Kershaw, the second of which he blasted to right-center causing Bellinger to chase it down near the warning track, a play that was replayed on television with high praise.

Evan Longoria, a fellow 2006 draft pick, saw three pitches from this ball including a classic Kershaw knee-buckling bender that was on the inside corner but called a ball. On the third pitch, Longoria fouled the ball off the chalk of the batters box and the ball was removed from play, ending it’s lifespan.

I’m always a tad skeptical when I see balls that are authenticated as used for various batters, especially when they are out into play. So when I opened the package today and saw that this ball is hammered, it made me smile as again the Giants Authentics department left me with zero doubt as to the authentication.

I also ordered the associated Topps Now card pictured below.

This entry was posted on September 5, 2020 at 11:47 am and is filed under Collecting Kershaw, Game-Used Items with tags baseball, Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers, game-used, Los Angeles Dodgers, Topps, Topps Now. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.