Los Angeles Dodgers pull Clayton Kershaw after 7 innings of a perfect game, setting social media on fire

It’s been a very long time since a perfect game has been thrown in Major League Baseball. Since 2012, in fact.

But Wednesday, it looked like baseball fans nearly saw another one courtesy of Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw.

The future Hall of Fame pitcher was on the mound for the Dodgers against the Minnesota Twins and was flawlessly perfect through seven innings.

But suddenly, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts – or potentially Kershaw himself, who really knows — called for pitcher Alex Vesia to sub into the game for Kershaw. Vesia immediately gave up a walk and a hit.

There are some reasons why the Dodgers probably decided to do this. The first and most obvious is that Kershaw had reached 80 pitches. If this were a different time in his career, perhaps when he was younger, he would’ve stayed on the mound to attempt a perfect game.

But he’s not, and although it stinks, that’s probably what led to that decision. On the other hand, it’s extremely rare what Kershaw was attempting to accomplish — it would’ve been just the 24th perfect game in MLB history — and for a star pitcher like him, you might as well let him go for it so he can add it to his running list of baseball accomplishments.

Regardless, Kershaw seemed OK with the decision the Dodgers made:

But the Dodgers’ decision didn’t sit well with folks on Twitter, who had a lot to say about it and expressed their dissatisfaction:

The Dodgers went on to shutout the Twins, 7-0.

— Aron Yohannes

ayohannes@oregonian.com; @aronyohannes

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