World Series champion. National League MVP. Cy Young Award winner. A no-hitter. Eight All-Star Games. A career 2.48 ERA. A .689 career winning percentage. The best pitcher of a generation. One of the greatest lefties of all-time. Surefire first ballot hall-of-famer. Clayton Kershaw’s resume is astounding.

But there’s one accomplishment the southpaw has yet to secure. A perfect game.

Kershaw retired the first 21 Minnesota Twins batters with 80 pitches last Wednesday and was six outs away from throwing the 24^th perfect game in MLB history.

But he never got that opportunity, and baseball fans were deprived the chance to see one of the rarest feats in all of sports.

More than 233,000 Major League games have been played. That means there has been a perfect game in nine-thousandths of one percent of MLB games. The likelihood of a perfect game occurring is only slightly more likely than someone is to be struck by lightning at any point in their lifetime (six-thousandths of one percent), according to the National Weather Service. It would have been the first perfect game in nearly a decade as the last one was Felix Hernandez in August 2012.

There have been 314 no-hitters, so there have been 13.65 times as many no-nos as many perfect games.

Kershaw was absolutely dealing and registered 13 strikeouts. His most taxing inning was the sixth, when he tossed 15 pitches and struck out the side. In two innings, he threw fewer than 10 pitches, including a six-pitch third. He was averaging just shy of 11.5 pitches per inning, so he was on pace for 103 over nine innings, far from an alarming total. The ball left the infield just three times.

For his career, hitters are hitting a measly .260 against Kershaw on pitches 75-100. That’s the lowest average in each 25-pitch window (1-25, 26-50, 51-75, 75-100 and 101+).

“If I was a fan, I would want to see somebody finish the game,” Kershaw said, according to ESPN. “From a fan’s perspective, I do feel bad for that. I wish I could’ve done it. But [it] wasn’t the day.”

The 2011 NL MVP was making his first start since Oct. 1, when he was pulled in the second inning with elbow soreness that caused him to miss the entirety of the postseason. He spent more than two months on the Injured List last season with the same injury.

Wednesday’s seven-inning outing was his longest since June 27. The lefty went more than seven innings just twice last season in 22 appearances.

Kershaw is the second pitcher to be removed with a perfect game through seven. The other was former teammate Rich Hill, who was removed after seven perfect innings and 89 pitches against the Miami Marlins in September 2016. So, the only two times a hurler was taken out six or fewer outs away from a perfect game, Dave Roberts was the manager who pulled the plug.

Roberts said he cannot manage the game with the perspective of being a fan. He said the decision to remove Hill, who was pitching for just the third time in two months due to injury, from that game made him “sick to his stomach” and that it was the hardest thing he had to do. He justified it by saying was the best option for the team in the middle of a pennant race with the playoffs approaching.

By contrast, Kershaw’s game was in the fifth game of the season. Five out of 162! The postseason is five and a half months away.

While Kershaw is coming back from injury and had a unique ramp up to the season between the lockout and abbreviated spring training, there’s plenty of time to monitor and regulate Kershaw’s innings and pitch count. But 80 pitches through seven innings in the first week of the season are not grounds for robbing one of the best pitchers in baseball history the chance to accomplish something he never has.

Granted Kershaw already threw a no-hitter, when he silenced the Colorado Rockies in 2014. It was one of the most dominant pitching performances in history as he struck out 15, the most in any no-no. He was one Hanley Ramirez errant throw away from a perfect game that night, but it was not meant to be.

That’s what makes this latest game even tougher to swallow. The southpaw has been so close to a perfect game twice now and will still be in pursuit of his first taste of perfection the next time he takes the mound.