LOS ANGELES — As Clayton Kershaw approaches history, one of his few peers laid out the staggering math in simple terms.

“I mean, 15 years of 200 strikeouts? You start thinking about how long you’ve been doing it,” said Justin Verlander, who has 3,471 career strikeouts. “To me, it put things in perspective a lot.”

Only 19 men in baseball history can lay claim to 3,000 career strikeouts, five fewer than have won 300 games. Only two active pitchers have crossed the threshold that Kershaw will inevitably reach.

Of those in the 3,000 club, only Steve Carlton, Randy Johnson and CC Sabathia pitched left-handed. Only Walter Johnson and Bob Gibson got there exclusively with one club, as Kershaw can do for the Los Angeles Dodgers with three strikeouts on Wednesday against the Chicago White Sox.

The milestone is rare enough, and becoming rarer. Max Scherzer is the most recent 3,000 K member, accomplishing the feat while Kershaw’s teammate in 2021. Verlander reached the mark while with the Houston Astros in 2019. Only two other active pitchers — Atlanta’s Chris Sale (2,528 strikeouts) and the New York Yankees’ Gerrit Cole (2,251) — are even within 750.

As the sport grapples with declining starting pitcher usage and spiking injury rates, it’s worth wondering: Will Kershaw be the last for the foreseeable future?

“There are a few guys left … the Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubals of the world, I just don’t know if they’ll have enough opportunity,” Kershaw said recently. “If they throw 220 innings, if you can do that, you’ve got to do that for 10 years. It’s just the longevity part of it. I’m hopeful there is. I’m hopeful there’s a return to starting pitching in baseball. I think it’s good for the entertainment factor. It’s good for the game in general.”

Major League Baseball’s strikeout rate was 22.6 percent a season ago, higher than the career rates of 11 of the 19 current members of the 3,000-strikeout club. That illuminates the challenge ahead: volume.

“Nobody, probably, will ever get to it,” said Zack Wheeler (1,751 career strikeouts). “I don’t know. It might be somebody. But they’re going to have to throw a lot and not get hurt.”

“It kind of shows you exactly what’s missing in the game,” Blue Jays right-hander Kevin Gausman, who has 1,855 career strikeouts, said. “That’s true horses, true aces. They’re really hard to find and don’t come around very often.”

“I don’t want to say never,” said Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior (757 career strikeouts). “I feel like every time someone comes up with 3,000, there’s always like, ‘It’s not going to happen again,’ and somebody eventually gets there. But it’s just hard. It’s the longevity and health and endurance piece, and then obviously you’ve got to be somebody who strikes guys out and be able to maintain that.”

“It’s a huge number,” Cole said, reiterating its importance to a bashful Kershaw last month when Cole’s Yankees came to Dodger Stadium to visit.

It’s more than just being the best at any given time

Kershaw has combined an elite peak — from 2011 to 2017, he won an MVP award, won three Cy Youngs, finished in the top five every year and recorded 1,623 strikeouts — with enough volume to stack his numbers upon one another. Despite a run of back injuries and other physical maladies, Kershaw didn’t undergo an arm surgery until after the 2023 season, when he repaired the capsule and glenohumeral ligaments in his left shoulder at 35 years old. By then, he’d already logged 2,712 2/3 innings in the majors.

Consistency and dominance.

“He’s different,” said Buster Posey, who faced Kershaw more times (120) than any other hitter and contributed 19 strikeouts to his tally. “I would watch him warm up before the game, trying to see a little bit of a crack in his routine, a little bit of something you could see in his face that he wasn’t the same as he was in the start before, and you never got that.”

It takes pure volume — and health

Kershaw has logged 200 innings five times in his career. Just four major-league pitchers reached the 200-inning threshold a year ago.

“I didn’t really think about it when I was doing it. It was just kind of what you did, what you’re supposed to do,” Kershaw said. “Now, a guy reaches (200) — there’s probably five or six guys a year that do it. It’s definitely a challenge. It’s almost more impressive now to do it. The guys that are doing it now, you’ve got to kind of defy the odds a little bit.”

Given modern workloads, even the best pitchers at their most efficient might not get sufficient opportunity to pitch enough for 3,000. Even Kershaw has admitted as such, joking recently that “I think my days of throwing 115 pitches is probably over.” More restrictive pitch counts could provide an artificial cap of sorts.

“I think the longevity and the durability component, I think it’s valued, but I don’t know if it’s valued in the same way as when you’re constructing rosters,” Prior said.

“The way guys are, breaking down, and kind of the longevity piece to throw in 200-plus innings a year, to be able to strike guys out, that’s … I don’t know the answer,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

Now, even 200 innings is a novel achievement. Which only adds to the difficulty of reaching 3,000 strikeouts.

“It’s epic,” said Giants manager Bob Melvin, who was behind the plate when Steve Carlton reached 4,000 career strikeouts. “Will you ever see it again? Guys are throwing 150 innings now, how are you going to do that?”

Beyond the peak years, there’s a matter of simply accumulating enough outings to give yourself a chance. Kershaw needed seven seasons of at least 200 strikeouts — and one with 301 — to even give himself a chance.

Just consider Zack Greinke, who Kershaw passed this season and logged 3,389 1/3 innings from 2004 to 2023 and is … 21 strikeouts shy of 3,000.

Consider Sale, who missed significant time due to injury before landing in Atlanta and winning the Cy Young in 2024. Sale recently went on the injured list with a fractured rib cage, at least delaying his pursuit of 3,000.

Or you can ask Cole, who struck out 326 batters in 2019 and appeared to be the torch holder for volume and consistency — and underwent Tommy John surgery this spring.

Even ask Kershaw, who saw his 2021 season cut short with a forearm issue, has dealt with a litany of back issues and whose quest for 3,000 this season was delayed because he underwent offseason surgeries to address painful bone spurs in his toe, a ruptured plate in his left foot and a torn meniscus in his left knee.

“When guys come up and you think about having a big year and you strike out 180, 200 guys, you’re like, ‘oh my god, that’s a lot of strikeouts,’” Prior said. “You’ve got to do that for how many years? Like 15 years? When you look at it like that, that’s a very daunting task even from somebody who’s been playing around for 15 years.”

Blake Snell is the all-time leader in strikeouts per nine innings, but doesn’t expect to hold that title for long. (Gary A. Vasquez / Imagn Images)

Is anyone even threatening?

Sale and Cole are within striking distance, but are in their 30s with plenty of unknown ahead. After that, Prior said, “It gets pretty dicey.”

Skubal, the Detroit Tigers ace, has seemingly assumed the title of most dominant pitcher in the sport, but already has a Tommy John surgery and a separate flexor tendon surgery on his chart to go with his 786 strikeouts at 28 years old. Skenes is a phenom, striking out 280 batters through his first 239 innings. But there’s still a long road ahead for the 23-year-old.

Blake Snell, the all-time leader in strikeouts per nine innings, already shares a clubhouse with Kershaw. The two-time Cy Young winner has Sale edged out by mere decimals (11.1679 to 11.1112), heading a list where the top five all-time leaders (Snell, Sale, Robbie Ray, Jacob deGrom, Scherzer) are all active players. It’s a mantle Snell doesn’t expect to hold for long.

“I got a long ways to go to keep that,” Snell said. “And somebody’s going to beat it anyway.”

Snell (1,372 career strikeouts) would need to churn through volume just to get to 2,000, having reached 180 innings pitched twice in his career. Still, Snell said, he sees a vision for things to revert to 3,000 being within reach for more budding aces.

“It’s just the evolution of the game,” Snell said. “Look at the College World Series. You’ve got guys throwing 130 pitches. Crazy. … It’s all ebb and flow. I think it’ll happen, but I don’t know when. Just as the game changes. Right now, strikeouts are high because (of) the swings. So it could happen.”

Kershaw will make the list of pitchers with 3,000 strikeouts, 20 names long. It remains to be seen how long it will take for someone else to join him.

“We took it for granted, maybe, early, and then were like, ‘Oh, no. He’s kind of getting banged up.’ So now it’s like he’s finally getting it,” Cole said. “It’s a great accomplishment for a magical career.”

The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly, Mitch Bannon, Brendan Kuty and Matt Gelb contributed reporting.

(Top photo of Clayton Kershaw: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)