Clayton Kershaw (born March 19, 1988, Dallas, Texas, U.S.) is an American professional baseball player who was among the sport’s best pitchers, winning three Cy Young Awards (2011, 2013, and 2014).
Kershaw was drafted out of high school by the Los Angeles Dodgers with the seventh overall pick of the 2006 amateur draft. The powerful left-hander spent just two and a half seasons in the minor leagues before being called up to the big leagues in May 2008. He had an uneven first (partial) season but hit his stride in his second year, posting a 2.79 earned run average (ERA) over 30 starts. Kershaw broke through as one of the top pitchers in the National League (NL) in 2011, when he led the league in wins (21), ERA (2.28), and strikeouts (248) to capture the pitching “triple crown.” He was selected to the first of four straight All-Star Games that year and won his first Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in the NL.
In 2012 Kershaw led the NL in ERA (2.53) again, a feat that he repeated the following year with a 1.83 ERA to secure his second Cy Young. As impressive as those ERAs were, he shattered them in 2014 by posting a 1.77 ERA and allowing a minuscule 0.857 walks or hits per inning pitched. His impressive performance earned Kershaw another Cy Young, and he joined Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax, Jim Palmer, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martínez, and Randy Johnson as the only pitchers to capture a Cy Young three times in four years. In 2014 he also became the first NL pitcher since Bob Gibson (in 1968) to win the league’s MVP award and only the third, after Gibson and Koufax (in 1963), to capture both NL accolades in the same season.
Kershaw’s 2014 campaign ended on a sour note as he lost his only two postseason starts, and the Dodgers were eliminated from the playoffs in the team’s opening series. That was the latest in a string of disappointing (by Kershaw’s high standards) postseason performances by the pitcher, who saw his career playoff ERA balloon to 5.12, almost three runs higher than his lifetime regular-season ERA. He continued to struggle during the first half of the 2015 season, with a 6–6 win-loss record in his first 18 starts. Following the All-Star break in mid-July, however, Kershaw was nearly unbeaten, and he finished the season with a 2.13 ERA and a league-leading 301 strikeouts. He posted a career-best 1.69 ERA in 2016 and at last had a postseason highlight by coming into the ninth inning of the final game of the divisional series on just two days’ rest to clinch the series for Los Angeles. However, Kershaw was also the losing pitcher in the decisive game of the subsequent NL Championship Series.
Kershaw continued to be baseball’s best pitcher in 2017, leading the NL in wins (18) and ERA (2.31) during the regular season while the Dodgers won a fifth straight division title and subsequently advanced to the team’s first World Series in 29 years. While Kershaw generally pitched well during the playoffs, he nevertheless set a major-league postseason record by allowing eight home runs over the course of six playoff appearances, and the Dodgers lost a thrilling seven-game World Series to the Houston Astros. His play fell off to a small degree in 2018, as he posted a 2.73 ERA and ended his seven-year streak of All-Star Game appearances. The Dodgers again won that season’s NL pennant, but Kershaw lost both his World Series starts, and Los Angeles was eliminated by the Boston Red Sox in five games. In 2019 Kershaw had a career-high 3.03 ERA and helped the Dodgers win a franchise-record 106 games. He lost his one playoff start but had a chance at redemption when he came into the eighth inning of the deciding fifth game of the Division Series with the Dodgers holding a 3–1 lead. Instead of saving the game and the series, however, he gave up solo home runs on consecutive pitches, and the Dodgers eventually lost to the Washington Nationals in extra innings, adding yet another dark chapter to the postseason history of the greatest regular-season pitcher of his generation. Kershaw and the Dodgers were redeemed during the 2020 season, where the team had the best record in the MLB and advanced to its third World Series in four years. There, Kershaw upended his postseason narrative by winning both of his starts while posting a 2.31 ERA and helping the Dodgers to a six-game series win and the franchise’s first championship in 32 years.
A forearm injury limited Kershaw’s play in 2021, and he did not pitch in the postseason. Despite his absence, the Dodgers advanced to the NL Championship Series but lost to the Atlanta Braves.