Clayton Kershaw Beats out Roy Halladay for NL Cy Young Award

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Kershaw Beats out Halladay for NL Cy Young

The close vote that was expected for the National League Cy Young Award never happened as Los Angeles left-hander Clayton Kershaw easily outdistanced Philadelphia’s Roy Halladay. Kershaw received 27 of the 32 first-place votes while Halladay got only four first-place votes.

Kershaw becomes the first Los Angeles pitcher to win the Cy Young since Orel Hershiser in 1988 and the eighth Dodger in history to win the award. Kershaw received 207 points which was 74 more than Halladay received. The Phillies’ Cliff Lee finished third in the voting followed by Ian Kennedy of the Diamondbacks. Kershaw led the league in wins with 21, in ERA at 2.28 and in strikeouts with 248. It was a career-best year for Kershaw who started 33 games and pitched 233 1/3 innings. He had three complete games and two shutouts. He was virtually unbeatable in the second half of the season and routinely favored in MLB baseball betting. He went 12-1 with a 1.31 ERA in the second half of the season. Kershaw went up against former NL Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum four times and the Dodgers beat the Giants in all four of those games.

Triple Crown

Kershaw actually won the Triple Crown of pitching as he had the most wins, lowest ERA and most strikeouts. Never in the history of the Cy Young award has a pitcher not won the Cy Young when he led the league in the Triple Crown categories. Kershaw had a .808 winning percentage this season and since 1956 there have only been six other pitchers who had a winning percentage that high, as low an ERA and as many strikeouts. Kershaw was 21-5 this season and he did that for a Los Angeles team that was basically average as the Dodgers finished 82-79. If you take out Kershaw’s wins the Dodgers would have been awful in MLB baseball betting. And it is not like Kershaw got a lot of help from the Los Angeles offense as the Dodgers scored four runs or less in 11 of his 21 wins.

Historic

Kershaw is off to a historic start to his career. He is just 23 years old and already has 47 wins, a 2.88 ERA and 745 strikeouts. No pitcher in Major League history has ever had that many wins an ERA that low and averaged so many strikeouts at the age of 23.