Clayton Kershaw Nearly Went a Year Without a Loss; Here's Everything That Happened In Between

Clayton Kershaw took the mound against the Chicago Cubs on Thursday night; his first start since he took his first loss of the season last weekend in San Francisco.

Kershaw allowed three runs on seven hits with eight strikeouts in six innings, as the Dodgers defeated the Cubs 7-3. It was his sixth win of the season, and his 11^th straight start of six innings or more.

The Dodgers improved to 10-1 in games Kershaw has started this season, but as the Southpaw begins another streak, it's imperative to look back at the historic one that was broken last week in the Bay.

Entering last Friday, Kershaw had made 21 consecutive starts without a loss. Overall, the Dodgers had won their last 17 straight regular season games that Kershaw started, a new franchise record.

In fact, Kershaw's last loss before Friday was on July 21, 2018. That's a span of 321 days between losses. Almost a full year. That means there's many babies that were born in the summer of 2018 about to turn a year old that had never seen Kershaw or the Dodgers lose a game that he took the mound.

Think about that for a second.

To put that in perspective, we decided to research and create a timeline of all the major events that occurred during the time Kershaw last lost a regular season game:

On July 25, 2018, just a few days after Kershaw's last loss, scientists found evidence of a salty lake buried beneath the surface of the planet Mars. The discovery of the large body of water meant that it could have been possible for life to have existed at some point on the red planet.

Just over a week later, Apple became the first publicly traded United States company to hit a market cap evaluation of over $1 trillion dollars. Amazon and Microsoft have both since passed the mark as well, but Apple will forever be known as the first powerful tech company to reach the milestone.

Months later, the world was stunned when Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey at the behest of the Saudi Arabia Crown Prince.

In early October, as Kershaw and the Dodgers were preparing for the MLB Playoffs, the United States confirmed a new Supreme Court Justice after a controversial and wrenching debate over the candidates temperament and past behaviors with women. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, was ultimately confirmed (50-48) to the highest court in the land, after weeks of testimony and accusations that he had sexually assaulted women in his high school and college days. After the closest confirmation vote since 1881, Kavanaugh was ultimately sworn into the court, providing a huge victory for President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

The Dodgers advanced to their second consecutive World Series in November, but ultimately watched another American League team celebrate on their own field after the Boston Red Sox defeated them in five games.

The Democrats won control over the House of Representatives during the November midterm elections.

Kershaw started and lost Game 5 of the World Series that ended the Dodgers 2018 season. Just days later, California's deadliest and most destructive wildfires in history swept across the state, claiming the lives of 88 people, and destroying nearly 19,000 buildings. 

Shortly thereafter, climate change scientists announced that the global temperate had risen 1.5 degrees Celsius, and that carbon pollution had rose for the third consecutive year. "We hoped that we had turned a corner…" said Rob Jackson an Earth scientist at Stanford University. "We haven't."

Following in the footsteps of many states that have voted to legalize marijuana, Canada became just the second country in the world to legalize the sell of cannabis. Uruguay is the only other nation to have legalized marijuana. 

The Los Angeles Rams advanced to the Super Bowl in just their third season back in L.A.

In April, the first ever photograph of a black hole was captured by the Event Horizon telescope.

Just days before Kershaw's last loss, LeBron James announced he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and signing with the Los Angeles Lakers. Nearly a year later, chaos and dysfunction ran rampant, as the Lakers were riddled with injuries and bad feelings, missing the NBA playoffs for the sixth consecutive season.

In June of 2016, the United Kingdom voted in a referendum to withdraw from the European Union. The shocking vote passed by just 1.9 percent, and three years later, including 21 consecutive starts by Kershaw without a loss, the fight in Britain still rages on.

Not one, but two different plane crashes involving the Boeing 737 MAX 8, occurred during this time span, killing 346 people. The planes were grounded immediately following the crash in Ethiopia, and the safety issue believed to have caused the crashes still has not been completely fixed.

The two-year long investigation into Russian collusion by the Trump campaign comes to an end as Robert Mueller submits his report to the Justice Department.

There was a measles and ebola outbreak.

Same-sex marriage is now recognized in 32 countries.

Six mass shootings claimed the lives of 44 people. 

An estimated 3.4 million babies were born in the United States.

All of that, and arguably the game's greatest pitcher, never lost a single regular season start.