Clayton Kershaw may be the humblest player in MLB history. For everything he’s accomplished, and for all the success he’s enjoyed as one of baseball’s greatest pitchers of all time, not a single person would blame him for being even the littlest bit arrogant. But that’s just not how Kershaw rolls.
Kershaw hates when the spotlight is on him, and loves highlighting his teammates and coaches instead — and apparently his competitors, too. When Kershaw joined Mookie Betts on his new show on Bleacher Report, he continued to display his never-ending humbleness.
Betts asked Kershaw about his incredible 2014 season that saw become just the ninth starting pitcher since 1956 to win the Most Valuable Player Award. However, Kershaw didn’t want to take any credit for his dominant season.
“Want me to tell you about that? The best players got hurt. That’s all it was,” Kershaw said. “Paul Goldschmidt got hurt. Andrew McCutchen got hurt. And Giancarlo Stanton, they all got hurt and missed time all at the right time to win MVP. So good timing. I’ll take it though, for sure.”
While it may be true that those three players got hurt during the season, it still doesn’t take away from the pure dominance that Kershaw displayed that year.
Kershaw led the MLB in wins (21), ERA (1.77), WHIP (0.86), ERA+ (197), FIP (1.81), K/9 (10.8), K/BB (7.71), complete games (6) and WAR (8.2). He had two shutouts, one of them being a 15-strikeout no-hitter against the Rockies where the only base runner reached on an error.
Kershaw finished ahead of Giancarlo Stanton and Andrew McCutchen for the MVP, two guys who only missed 17 and 16 games on the year, respectively. So Kershaw saying that he only won because of injuries is completely unfair — but also you can’t expect anything less from the humble Kershaw.
Either way, we all know Kershaw deserved that MVP Award. He had one of the more dominant pitching seasons in MLB history, and finally took home the award after receiving MVP votes the three years prior.
Hopefully, one day, Kershaw is able to admit that he deserves all the accolades that come with being one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history. But for now, we’ll keep doing that for him.
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