Editorials

Dodgers News: The Pitch to Start Clayton Kershaw in the All-Star Game

The 2016 All-Star game is July 12 and will be hosted in San Diego. Fans still have time to vote for their favorite Dodgers into the game as they have 8 Dodgers on the ballot.

Clayton Kershaw has been voted to the National League All-Star Team for the last five seasons, but there is one title within the midsummer classic that has eluded the 28-year-old ace of the Los Angeles Dodgers.



[graphiq id=”bDXR072A125″ title=”Clayton Kershaw” width=”600″ height=”668″ url=”https://w.graphiq.com/w/bDXR072A125″ link=”http://baseball-players.pointafter.com/l/8619/Clayton-Kershaw” link_text=”Clayton Kershaw | PointAfter” ]

In the time Kershaw has spent with the National League All-Stars, five pitchers have earned the honor of starting the All-Star game. Kershaw has yet to trot to the hill in that role, but NL All-Star manager Terry Collins should have a clear choice on who he should name.

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Zack Greinke had one of the more historic pitching seasons of recent memory in 2015, going 8-2 and holding opponents’ batting averages to a mere .191. His 1.39 ERA was the lowest posted by a pitcher before the All-Star break since Bob Gibson’s 1.06 ERA in 1968, the acclaimed “Year of the Pitcher”. Greinke is also the only pitcher to pull the overall ERA crown from Kershaw in the last five seasons.

[graphiq id=”9GrCbwoT9X” title=”Zack Greinke” width=”600″ height=”668″ url=”https://w.graphiq.com/w/9GrCbwoT9X” link=”http://baseball-players.pointafter.com/l/6334/Zack-Greinke” link_text=”Zack Greinke | PointAfter” ]

Kershaw leads all of Major League Baseball in a ton of valuable categories, including ERA (1.57), strikeouts (141), WAR (Wins Above Replacement; 4.7), innings pitched (115), and shutouts (3). Kershaw ranks second in wins (11) and winning percentage (.917), which should be enough to give him his first appearance as the starting pitcher in the Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Petco Park in San Diego on July 12.

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Other pitchers that are being considered for the role include the Cubs’ Jake Arrieta (11-2, 1.74 ERA), Nationals’s Stephen Strasburg (10-0, 2.90 ERA), Giants’ Johnny Cueto (11-1, 2.06 ERA), and Mets’ Noah Syndergaard (8-2, 2.08 ERA).

What makes Kershaw stand out from all these other starters is his pace to dominate games by having a strikeout-to-walk ratio that is double what the next leader is (Kershaw’s is 20.14, while Syndergaard is second with 9.17). His 2016 campaign has been compared to Pedro Martinez’s 1999 season where the former Dodger went 23-4 and won the Cy Young Award with the Boston Red Sox.

Kershaw’s historic season in which he has achieved a 20:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in the first three months of the season begs the attention of the spotlight for the midsummer classic, and he is the clear frontrunner to start the game in that will decide which league will have the home field advantage for the World Series in October.

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Noah Friedman

Native Angeleno, adopted Phoenician. I'm going into my junior year at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. I study sports journalism while covering a multitude of Sun Devils sports. Follow me on Twitter @OPannouncer!

2 Comments

  1. Seems like every year lately this comes up. Us as Dodger fans believe he should start the All Star game – because he should. Everyone else knows, whether they like it or not, that he’s the best pitcher on the planet and deserves to start. But, as happens every year, the manager will probably start one of his own guys. Boche did it with Bumgarner. Matheney did it with Wainwright. I’ll be surprised if Collins starts Kershaw before Syndergard and/or DeGrom.

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