Clayton Kershaw Nearly Pitched The Best Season Ever

this is Clayton Kershaw and he's about to make history and with that 300 strikeouts for Clayton Kershaw in 2015 Kershaw pitched MLB's first 300 strikeout season in over a decade capping off a historic year Kershaw began the 2015 season with a 4.32 erra in his first nine starts then something clicked over his final 24 starts he possessed an erra less than 1.5 and threw over 200 strikeouts a feat that's been accomplished by only one other pitcher Bob Gibson back in 1968 on the outside Kershaw's overall 2015 season seemed like nothing more than his typical saong caliber year but when digging deeper you realize he was on one of the most dominant runs ever which left us with one question could he maintain this level of production over a full season 15 strikeouts for Clayton khaw to tie is alltime high today's video is sponsored by SE geek it's the middle of summer which not only means we're heading towards the climax of the MLB season but the NFL season is right around the corner and I've 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accurate headline from the 2010s in what was and still is the most lopsided opening day shut out in major league history Kershaw silenced the padr a truly dominant performance that had long become the norm for Kershaw but as mentioned by Vin Scully a type of performance not commonly attributed to Kershaw in April through 2015 March and April were the only months where Kershaw held in erra over three however 2016 began differently in his first four starts Kershaw was a pitching machine throwing at least seven innings in every start while allowing two earned runs or less per game resulting in an erra of 1.50 although the seventh inning of start number five raised Kershaw's erra by nearly a full run still by throwing 10 strikeouts he ended the month with 40 strikeouts and only three walks allowed over his first five starts a feat only eight pitchers have accomplished in MLB history this combination of filthy pitches and precise command were qualities that had long been attributed to Kershaw but without a certain breakthrough early in his big league career the future first ballot Hall of Fame status he's attained would have been impossible to reach Clayton ready here he comes swung on and a highfly ball into deep left center field and just like that the Rockies are out in front two to nothing back in his 2008 rookie season Kershaw was for the most part a one-trick pony he threw his four seam fastball over 70% of the time combining this with a curveball that he threw nearly 23% of the time Kershaw used two pitches with a combined usage rate of nearly 95% this sort of combination isn't exactly unprecedented but since the start of the stack cast era in 2015 only one player has thrown a for seamer as often as Kershaw did Antonio sends atella so what does this look like in action well let's analyze Jeff Baker's at bat against Kershaw the first pitch was a curveball that dropped in the zone for strike one then he misses with both a fast ball and curveball to fall behind in the count Kershaw's curveball was widely praised for its swing and Miss ability but it had its concerns once he made it to the majors due to a self-admitted inability to consistently control the pitch Joe Tori and Don madingley essentially told him if you're not throwing your curveball for a strike you have one pitch going back to the at bat it's a 2-1 count and Kershaw missed pretty badly with a curveball as a result he proceeds to throw the fast ball over and over again and Baker keeps fouling them off as the pitches pile on Kershaw eventually makes a mistake and Baker crushes it as a former top 10 Prospect Kershaw had all the potential in the world but as he admitted there aren't too many guys who can get away with throwing a fast ball 72% of the time especially as a starter you have to figure something out in short Kershaw needed a third pitch he already possessed the change up a pitch with a 5% usage rate in his rookie year but throughout his career he's never quite gotten the feel to be able to throw it consistently ultimately Kershaw settled on a slider a pitch that catapulted his career to new heights he began to consistently use this pitch in june9 take a look at the before and after that's basically two different pitchers between 2010 and 2015 he won three Sai Youngs and was named the 2014 National League MVP a season where he produced an ER Plus of 197 meaning his erra was 97% better than League average by 2014 not only had Kershaw's pitch usage rates drastically changed he also showcased a significant uptick in slider velocity going from around 85 mph in 2013 to just over 88 mph in his 2014 MVP season which he carried into 2015 his 300 strikeout season heading into 2016 Kershaw's lethal pitch repertoire combined with a deceptive delivery that made hitting against him nearly impossible resulted in one of the most dominant Beginnings to a career ever seen in baseball in his first eight years Kershaw had five SE Seasons with a 150 ER Plus he's the only player to accomplish this since the start of the integration era in 1947 by 2016 Kershaw was well on his way to Cooper toown but the best was Yet to Come crowd of 49,000 beside themselves of this great performance or should we just say another great performance on May 1st 2016 Kershaw completed one of the best St parts of his career a complete Game shutout with 14 strikeouts and no walks resulting in a game score of 95 game score is a way of measuring a starting pitcher's performance on a scale of 1 to 100 where 50 is average except for extreme outliers where a game score goes over 100 which Kershaw accomplished with his 15 strikeout no hitter in 2014 his May 1st 2016 start ranks a couple spots below this a truly dominant performance that's usually seen only a handful of times in an MLB season well two starts later he did it again proving he was actually dominant against teams other than the Padre's Kershaw pitched another complete Game shutout this time with 13 strikeouts and only one walk allowed however what you don't know is this one walk made up a quarter of his season total to this point in MLB history only two players have accumulated at least 75 strikeouts and four or less walks in their first eight starts of a season Kershaw and Garrett Cole while Cole's unprecedented run ended in his ninth start Kershaw continued his through the end of May resulting in one of the greatest months in Modern Baseball history in erra under one a strikeout rate near 40% and a walk rate just over 1% but think of it like this in May Kershaw pitched three separate complete Game shutouts while at the same time allowing only two walks throughout the entire month overall Kershaw was on a level very few players in baseball history could compete with so the question was how far could he take this well as he continued into June he showed very few signs of slowing down through his 15th start on June 20th he possessed an erra under 1.6 and had thrown over 140 strikeouts a feat only four pitchers have accomplished in the first 15 starts of a season however in start number 16 something was wrong a season low game score of 40 nine hits allowed four earned runs four strikeouts and two walks allowed yeah something was definitely wrong and a few days later we found found out exactly what it was he had suffered a back injury an injury that took over 2 months to recover from he ended up pitching five more starts in the regular season and while he didn't pitch at the same volume as he did in the first half Kershaw maintained the incredible run he was on before his injury ultimately ending the season with some insane stats a career low ER and FIP a career high ER Plus and some incredible strikeout and walk rates becoming the first pitcher ever to hold a strikeout rate over 30% and walk rate under 2% while pitching at least 100 innings in a season but that's the unfortunate part the Innings Kershaw was robbed of the opportunity to pitch a full season instead of viewing this season amongst the greatest in baseball history it currently sits with the countless wh ifs that'll forever be debated and never answered but but let me offer a thought in multiple Seasons Kershaw pitched 33 games between the end of May 2015 and Kershaw's back injury in June 2016 he had numerous 33 game stretches where he accumulated 300 strikeouts and kept an erra under 1.5 something only Jacob De Grom has accomplished in the integration era among this list Kershaw's 33 game span between June 27th 2015 and June 20th 2016 sticks out the most as it features the lowest ER lowest number of walks and over 300 strikeouts do you know how many pitchers have produced a full season of this caliber no one ultimately Kershaw was robbed of the opportunity to compete for the title of greatest season ever but during this Span in terms of pure strike throwing efficiency over the course of a full season's worth of games Kershaw was on a level never seen before in MLB or in other words he nearly pitched the best season ever I hope you guys enjoyed the video leave a like if you did and subscribe for more content just like this thanks for watching