Clayton Kershaw is more than a name. He is more than a baseball player. He is more than a pitcher.
Clayton Edward Kershaw was born March 13, 1988 in Dallas Texas. Eighteen years later, Clayton Kershaw would be drafted by his current team the Los Angeles Dodgers. A couple of years after being drafted, he made his debut in Dodger Blue. Nobody knew that this young star would become the most dominating pitcher in all of baseball.
Clayton Kershaw is every hitter’s worst nightmare. He has over 200 strikeouts over the last five individual years. He also pitched a no-hitter against the Colorado Rockies in 2014. A no-hitter is where you don’t give up any hits but a runner reaches base either on an error or walk. The only baserunner to reach base in that game only got on because the shortstop Hanley Ramirez made a silly error. Besides the error, Clayton struck out 15 other Rockies. This could be due to his original pitching mechanics.
Clayton Kershaw has one of the most original pitching stances in all of baseball. He picks his foot up with the glove in front of his head. He holds it there for a split second, leans back, and fires it to the catcher. He throws some pretty good pitches out of that stance. He throws a fastball, a slider, a 12/6 curveball, and a deadly changeup. People think that Clayton is a flame thrower like Yordano Ventura or Felix Hernandez, but the truth is he isn’t. His average fastball velocity (speed) on pitch f/x is 94 miles per hour according to Brooks Baseball.
Since Clayton Kershaw was so good, he took home a lot of awards. One of his most famous awards that he received in 2014 was the National League Most Valuable Player. He is one of the only pitchers to win that award. The others are Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, and Justin Verlander. He had to beat out some of baseball’s best hitters for the award. He had to beat out the mighty Giancarlo Stanton and the great Andrew McCutchen. It was also no surprise when he won the Cy Young award, too. In 2014, Kershaw put up monster numbers. He went 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA. He also had 6 complete games with 2 shutouts. This wasn’t the first time that Clayton Kershaw won a Cy Young award. He also won it in 2011 and 2013. He also collected multiple Gibby awards, too.
When you have a pitcher that is this overpowering, you can’t buy it for cheap money. Back in the offseason of 2013, Kershaw and the Dodgers agreed on a record setting 7 year, $215 million dollar contract. Hopefully, Clayton can do what he did this year for the next 6 years.
Clayton Kershaw is also surprisingly good at everything else in baseball. This is different because he is a pitcher. Pitchers normally aren’t that good at fielding and are horrible at hitting. He made a couple of diving plays and had amazing batting statistics for a pitcher. In 2014, Clayton got 11 hits in 63 at-bats. He got one triple and posted a .175 batting average. Once again, that is bad for any other regular everyday player but is great for a pitcher. He also got walked four times.
This pitcher seems to be the invincible pitcher that doesn’t have any weaknesses at all. That is not true. He has one weakness that is really bad. In 2014, he got his team the Los Angeles Dodgers into the postseason. Everybody thought that the Dodgers would dominate any other team that stood in their way for a World Series title. But Clayton fell apart going 0-2 in the 2014 postseason. That would bring his career postseason record to a horrible 1-5.
The upcoming 2015 season is looking like a good one. His Cy Young and MVP awards make him look more intimidating than he has ever been. It still is pretty clear that he is going to be the ace again next year. He is going to have to get used to Josh Beckett not being there and Brandon McCarthy replacing him. But all in all, we hope Clayton has another MVP type year this season.
Career Stats
Record: 98-49
ERA: 2.48
Innings: 1378.1
Strikeouts: 1445
Complete Games: 17
Shutouts: 9
Walks: 424
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Bibliography
‘’Pitch Repertoire At-A-Glance.’’ Brooks Baseball. Web. 12/29/14.
www.brooksbaseball.net/landing.php?player=477132
‘’Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers agree to record $215M Deal.’’ USA Today. Web. 12/29/14.
ESPN. Web. 12/29/14. espn.go.com/mlb/player/stats/_/id/28963/clayton-kershaw