The Los Angeles Dodgers ace southpaw Clayton Kershaw tossed the second no-hitter of the 2014 season tonight in the Dodgers 8-0 win against the Colorado Rockies. The no-hitter, which comes just twenty-four days after his teammate Josh Beckett accomplished the same feat on May 25th against the Philadelphia Philles, is the first one of the 26-year-olds career and has now joined an elite pitching club that features many notable names.
Kershaw, who came into tonight’s game 6-2 on the season with two complete games in his 10 starts, was looking sharp from beginning to end where he showed his dominance from the first inning on and had the Rockies hitters looking lost at the plate. With a 8-run lead after the fourth-inning, Kershaw needed nothing more from his teammates as he seemed to have everything under control from the mound where he utilized his masterful curve ball to strikeout a career-high 15 batters.
In the seventh-inning, after retiring 18 straight, what would have been Kershaw’s perfect game had ended following a throwing error by Dodgers shortstop Hanley Ramirez, but not even that could stop him from getting out of his zone, because he sat down the next 10 batters to finish out his third complete game of the season and only needed 107 pitches to do so.
With two National League Cy Young Award wins under his belt and many other pitching accolades such as triple crown winner, three-time NL ERA champion and two-time NL strikeout champion, it was only a matter of time before we saw Kershaw accomplish such a tremendous milestone in the young southpaws career. The left-hander is now 7-2 on the season boasting a 2.52 ERA and after that win, he pushed the Dodgers record to 40-34.
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