Clayton the Unhittable

Whatever's in the water cooler in the Los Angeles Dodgers' dugout seems to be working for the team's starting pitching staff which has produced the only two no-hitters thus far. After going nearly two decades without a single Dodger no-hitter, the boys in blue have now witnessed a pair of no-no's less than a month apart from one another in 2014. With Josh Beckett tossing the first no-hitter of the 2014 season back in May, the first by a Dodger since Hideo Nomo in 1996, L.A.'s ace Clayton Kershaw now has a no-hitter story to tell of his own. Having already established what appears to be a Hall of Fame worthy resume in just six full seasons and touted as the best pitcher in all of baseball, Kershaw's name will now be etched in the record books after logging his most dominant outing yet. And let's be honest, we all knew he was bound to toss a no-hitter sooner or later.

With the start of Kershaw's 2014 season anything but ideal, serving a stint on the disabled-list for the first time of his career just one start in after being awarded his second Cy Young Award last season and third consecutive ERA title, the 3-time All-Star appears to have put that behind him and has more than made up for his early absence. Having often been compared to Dodger great and fellow southpaw Sandy Kofax, Kershaw now has something else in common with the Dodgers legend now that he's got a no-hitter under his belt. Something Kofax knows plenty about considering he tossed four no-hitters of his own during his days, one of which being a perfect game. Though time will tell whether the 26-year old Kershaw can come even remotely close to Kofax's four no-hitters, his no-no would've been a perfect game had it not been for an error in the seventh inning by Dodgers shortstop Hanley Ramirez who's errant throw to first base allowed the only base runner in the game for the Rockies.

To put into perspective just how dominant Kershaw's outing really was on Wednesday night, he struck out a career-high 15 batters and allowed only one 3-ball count while needing only 107-pitches (80 for strikes) as the Dodgers defeated Colorado easily by a final score of 8-0. Kershaw improved to 7-2 on the year while bumping his ERA down to 2.52 and more importantly helped L.A. close the gap on the division-leading Giants who's 9.5 game lead just two weeks ago has shrunk to just four games. Despite a disappointing outing in the series clinching game 6 of the NLCS last season which saw Kershaw surrender seven earned runs to the St. Louis Cardinals who went on to the World Series, the Dodgers agreed to a record-setting contract extension with their ace during the offseason, signing him to a 7-year, $215 Million deal, the richest contract ever signed by a pitcher. And so far, Kershaw's been worth every dime.


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