Kershaw Wins NL Cy Young For Third Time

Former Great Lake Loons Clayton Kershaw dominated the National League Cy Young Award voting like he dominated hitters all season - it wasn't even close.

Kershaw claimed his third Cy Young award Wednesday night by a unanimous vote of the Baseball Writer's Association. The Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander received all 30 first-place votes in becoming the youngest three-time winner in baseball history.

But there may be more to come.

Kershaw, 26, is one of the favorites to win the NL Most Valuable Player Award, which will be announced Thursday night. Should he win, Kershaw would become the first NL pitcher to win an MVP since Bob Gibson in 1968.

Even if he doesn't, however, it won't diminish his status as one of his era's true superstars, which is only enhanced by his adding another Cy Young trophy to his collection. But given his 2014 performance, in which he even topped himself, it would have been hard to vote against him.

Consistent excellence has become Kershaw's modus operandi; he made 17 consecutive starts in 2014 in which he pitched at least seven innings without allowing more than three earned runs. But as Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis described it to Dodger Insider magazine, it's not as if Kershaw simply got on a one-time hot streak.

"He's in a zone," Ellis said in September. "But I don't think you can say 'it's a zone' anymore, where it's like you're in a zone and hot for two weeks. I think this is who he is."

That's a sobering thought for NL batters, who must continue to deal with a masterful pitcher in the prime of his career. In seven MLB seasons, Kershaw is 98-49 with a 2.48 ERA and 1,445 strikeouts in 1,378 1/3 innings pitched.

For Loons fans, who saw Kershaw at age 19 in the franchise's inaugural season, sustained brilliance from the Dodgers 2006 first-round draft pick is nothing new. Kershaw made 20 starts for the Loons in 2007 - including in the team's first game ever - and went 7-5 with a 2.77 ERA while striking out 134 batters in 97 1/3 innings before being promoted to Double-A Jacksonville.

But as Kershaw told national media outlets Wednesday night, he never envisioned the kind of brilliant major leaguer career that he's already had.

"I sit back and try to think about where I was five years ago, six years ago, I was just starting out and if you told me I'd be in that kind of company, I'd laugh at you," he said.

"I just wanted to make it."