Clayton Kershaw Still The King

I wrote last week about the dominance of the Cubs and specifically the dominance of Jake Arrieta. I almost feel like baseball fans have gotten so excited about Arrieta that we’ve almost forgotten about how good Kershaw has been and still is. After striking out 13 Mets last night, Kershaw has now punched out at least 10 batters in five consecutive starts. Arrieta hasn’t even struck out ten batters in a game once this year. Kershaw has been the premiere pitcher in the MLB for the last 9 years and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. He has a career ERA of 2.40 and 1,823 strikeouts to only 470 walks. Those numbers have earned him three Cy Young awards, along with two more top five finishes, and an MVP award. This season has not been any sort of a drop of for Kershaw. He is currently 5-1 with a 1.74ERA and 77 strikeouts to only 4 walks. That strikeout to walk ratio is a staggering 19.25, which would be a new record in the MLB if Kershaw were able to maintain it for the rest of the season. However, Kershaw knows that strikeouts isn’t the name of the game. He understands that the strikeouts are great, but getting outs and wins is more important. “As long as you keep your pitch count down, it doesn’t matter how you get outs,” he said. “As long as it’s weak contact, quick outs. Tonight I was able to get deep into the game. Strikeouts are just kind of a byproduct. It’s not that important in the grand scheme of things, for sure.” We are truly witnessing one of the best pitchers ever in his prime and it is a thing of beauty