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It didn’t come as much of a surprise when Los Angeles Dodgers pitching ace Clayton Kershaw was named the National League’s Cy Young Award winner for the 2014 season. Kershaw put up some spectacular numbers this campaign and has now taken the trophy home for the third time in his career. He also won the award in 2011 and 2013. Kershaw was so good this year that he was named the 2014 National League MVP as well. If there was a downside to the 26-year-old’s season it came in the playoffs when the left-hander struggled.
However, the Cy Young and MVP awards are based on the regular season only and Kershaw deserved the honours by posting a 21-3 won/loss record along with a minuscule ERA of 1.77. Kershaw’s excellent ERA this season means he now has the lowest career ERA for a starting pitcher since back in 1969. After the 1968 campaign MLB lowered the pitcher’s mound as a way to increase offense. Kershaw has a career ERA of 2.48 and that’s better than any starting pitcher who has thrown a minimum of 1,000 innings.
These are some interesting facts regarding Kershaw’s 2014 campaign
Kershaw became the first pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball to lead the league in earned-run average for four consecutive seasons. Lefty Grove and Sandy Koufax both led their respective leagues in ERA four straight years, but nobody had ever led all of MLB in four consecutive seasons. It’s also a good bet that he makes if five straight next year.
The native of Dallas, Texas threw the most impressive no-hitter in MLB history when he beat the Colorado Rockies back on June 18. Kershaw recorded a career-high 15 strikeouts in the game and didn’t walk a single batter. He almost had a perfect game, but a batter reached base on a fielding error in the seventh inning. It was the first time in MLB history that a pitcher had 15 strikeouts without allowing a walk or a hit.
The four-time all-star had already established himself as the top pitcher in the Majors before the 2014 season, but he improved on his previous campaigns by having career-bests in walks with 31 and strikeouts per nine innings at 10.8. His WHIP (walk plus hits per inning pitched) at 0.857 and 1.77 earned run average were also career bests as were throwing first-pitch strikes.
During the months of June and July Kershaw might as well have worn a Superman uniform instead of a Dodgers outfit as he had a 10-0 record and his ERA was just 0.94. During these two months Kershaw put together a scoreless streak of 41 innings and also pitched the no-hitter. He started 11 games with the opposition batting just .165 off of him and they had an on-base percentage of .190. He pitched 86 innings during that stretch and walked just eight batters while striking out 104 of them.
The first time an opposing team loaded the bases with Kershaw on the mound didn’t come until August 27th. In fact, he only pitched with the bases loaded two times during the entire season and he managed to get all three of the batters out.
While Kershaw is arguably the best pitcher in baseball right now, it’s hard to believe that his on-base percentage was actually higher than that of his opposing batters. Kershaw had a .235 on-base percentage in the 2014 season and he managed to hold the opposition batters to an on-base percentage of just .231.
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