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After defeating the San Diego Padres on Monday night and notching his 18th win of the season, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw has forced his way into the National League MVP discussion with just a little more than two weeks left in the regular season.

In 24 starts this season, the Dodgers’ ace sports an 18-3 record and leads all pitchers in ERA (1.67), WHIP (0.82) and WAR (7.5) and is the likely front-runner to win the National League CY Young Award.

While pitchers have typically been left off MVP voting ballots, Kershaw’s strong season has pushed him into elite company, via Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com:

With MVP awards typically reserved for position players, Kershaw‘s historic season has started to prove he is more important to his team than the other presumed front-runners: Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen and Miami Marlins right fielder Giancarlo Stanton.

In 128 games this season, McCutchen has hit .311 with 22 home runs, 74 RBI and has an OPS of .938.

Down in Miami, Stanton has batted .291 in 143 games with 37 home runs, leads the National League with 105 RBI and has registered an OPS of .957.

With Pittsburgh holding just a 1.5-game lead in the NL Wild Card and Miami sitting 4.5 games back, McCutchen‘s and Stanton’s great seasons may be diminished if their teams fail to make it to the playoffs.

Kershaw and the Dodgers currently sit atop the National League West with a 3.5-game lead. Barring some unforeseen breakdown, they appear to be headed to the postseason.

While making the postseason is not a prerequisite for winning an MVP award, Kershaw’s WAR of 7.5—and the fact that the Dodgers have won 20 of the 24 games in which he has started—would indicate that without him on the mound, the Dodgers would be fighting with teams like the Marlins in the middle of the pack for a wild-card spot.

The WAR stat has become more commonplace in recent years, and after 2011 MVP Justin Verlander was named the first pitcher to win the award since Roger Clemons in 1986, the groundwork has been laid out for a dominant pitcher like Kershaw to win the award. 

Verlander finished the 2011 season going 24-5 with a 2.40 ERA, a .920 WHIP and led all pitchers with an 8.4 WAR. Twenty-two players received votes in the AL for MVP that season and only one player, Ben Zobrist, finished with a higher WAR (8.7) than Verlander. Despite boasting the higher WAR, Zobrist finished 16th in the balloting.

Just as Verlander sat near the top of all MLB players in 2011 with his WAR, Kershaw‘s 7.5 WAR is the highest among all qualifying players in both leagues. Stanton’s 6.39 and McCutchen‘s 5.47 puts them squarely in the top 20, but that may be what helps Kershaw land the most votes at the end of the season.

There is no guarantee that Kershaw‘s league-leading WAR will help claim him the award, but after comparing his 2014 season to that of Verlander’s in 2011, it appears that Kershaw is quickly headed toward the top of the MVP discussion following his 18th win Monday night. 

All stats courtesy of ESPN.com. 

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Clayton Kershaw can do it all. Witness his most recent start on August 10 against the National League Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers.

Sure, Kershaw’s line was typically dominant: 8 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 6 SO, 2 BB. But his contributions extended beyond the mound.

As he so often does, the lanky left-hander took the Los Angeles Dodgers on his back, driving in a run, scoring another, picking a runner off first and turning an acrobatic catch-and-throw double play.

In other words, doing it all.

“It’s fun to feel like a baseball player,” Kershaw told Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times after the 5-1 victory, which widened the Dodgers’ division lead over the rival San Francisco Giants. “We get labeled as pitchers, so every once in a while, you get some dirt on your jersey, it gets fun.”

It’s also gotten Kershaw into the midst of the National League MVP chase.

He’s only one name in a crowded field. But the opportunity is there for Kershaw—who already owns two Cy Young Awards—to bolster his trophy case.

Will he do it? Should he? Let’s break it down.

The Case For Kershaw

Kershaw has been so unhittable for the past couple of months, it’s easy to forget his season began on an inauspicious note. More specifically, the disabled list.

After recovering from a strained back muscle in early May and returning to action, Kershaw looked mostly like Kershaw. Then the calendar turned, and he looked like something else entirely. 

Entering play Tuesday, Kershaw boasts the best ERA (1.78) and WHIP (0.86) in all of baseball. He’s averaging nearly 11 strikeouts per nine innings. He’s tossed five complete games, a feat that 28 other teams have failed to accomplish, per the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin.

And his 5.9 WAR doesn’t just lead all NL pitchers, it leads all NL players. Period.

The Dodgers have always penciled in a “W” before Kershaw takes the hill. These days, they’re writing it in Sharpie.

As well they should: Los Angeles has won each of their ace’s last 13 starts, and he’s 11-0 in that stretch.

Valuable, no doubt. Extremely valuable. But most valuable?

The Case Against Kershaw

The argument against Kershaw is really more an argument against any pitcher winning MVP. 

Let’s let Albert Pujols, himself a three-time winner, make the case, per Hernandez:

You don’t see the players win the Cy Young. The Cy Young award is the MVP for the pitchers, and the MVP should be for the best player in the league…unless you don’t have any players in the league who have had a decent year.

Certainly there are players having more than decent years. The Colorado Rockies‘ Troy Tulowitzki (.340 batting average, 1.035 OPS), the Miami Marlins‘ Giancarlo Stanton (.292 batting average, 31 home runs, 82 RBI) and reigning NL MVP Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates (.311 batting average, 17 HR, 17 SB) all belong squarely in the conversation.

There are knocks against each. McCutchen and Tulowitzki are both battling injuries. Tulo’s pedestrian road splits indicate a clear Coors Field bump. Stanton has racked up the strikeouts, whiffing 135 times in 514 plate appearances. And both Stanton and Tulowitzki play for clubs that almost certainly won’t make the postseason, something voters frequently factor in.

Any of those guys, though, would be a worthy winner. And unlike Kershaw, they’ve been a part of the bulk of their teams’ victories.

As good as Kershaw has been (and he’s been plenty good), he simply can’t contribute as consistently as his position-player peers while watching four out of every five games from the dugout.

The Verdict

Really, this comes down to a question of philosophy more than numbers: Should a pitcher ever win MVP?

If you say no—if you follow Pujols’ rather convincing logic—then clearly you give it to someone else (probably Stanton if McCutchen and Tulo don’t return to action soon). 

Voters, though, have said yes to pitchers before. Since the advent of the Cy Young in 1956, seven pitchers have won MVP. 

If the season ended today, Kershaw would have a lower ERA and WHIP than six of them. Only Bob Gibson in 1968 (1.12 ERA, 0.85 WHIP) posted better numbers.

That ’68 season is widely regarded as “the year of the pitcher.” So it’s fitting that the game’s top arm claimed the top prize.

You could make the same argument in 2014. In the post-steroid era, the hurler again rules. And right now, no hurler is ruling like Clayton Kershaw.

Nothing is settled yet; there’s too much baseball left.

Right now, though, a pitcher looks like the clear and justified favorite for the NL MVP Award. Not just a pitcher—a player.

A player who can do it all.

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw had his incredible scoreless streak snapped at 41 innings Thursday night, when San Diego Padres third baseman Chase Headley hit a solo home run to left-center field in the sixth inning of an eventual 2-1 Dodgers victory.

Kershaw‘s streak, which had become the subject of significant media attention, was the third-longest in Dodgers history, trailing only the 59-inning run put together by Orel Hershiser in 1988 and the 58-inning streak courtesy of Don Drysdale in 1968, according to the team’s official Twitter page.

The pair of aforementioned streaks are the two longest in MLB history, a fitting feat for an organization known for its impressive history of aces.

Kershaw‘s streak, meanwhile, is tied for fifth-longest in the majors since 1961, according to Eric Stephens of True Blue LA. Hershiser and Drysdale hold down the top two spots, while Bob Gibson had a 47-inning streak for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1968, and Brandon Webb had a 42-inning streak with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2007.

Tied with Kershaw in fifth place is Luis Tiant, who tossed 41 consecutive scoreless innings for the Cleveland Indians in 1968.

Three of the top six streaks came in ’68, best known to baseball fans as the “Year of the Pitcher.” Gibson posted a ridiculous 1.12 ERA over 304.2 innings that season, setting a live-ball era record that still stands.

While challenging Gibson’s record is seemingly out of the question, Kershaw currently owns a sparkling 1.78 ERA, putting him on track to become the first qualifying starter since Roger Clemens in 2005 (1.87) with a sub-2.00 ERA at the end of a season.

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Do you like monstrous power at the plate? How about unhittable pitching with some of the nastiest stuff from some of the best hurlers in the game? Throw in a few hints of unbelievable defensive gems, and that’s exactly what fans will feast their eyes on during the 2014 MLB All-Star Game.

Multiple mashers like Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, Andrew McCutchen and Troy Tulowitzki will look to put on a show at Target Field. But with aces in Felix Hernandez, Yu Darvish, Clayton Kershaw and Adam Wainwright looking to silence those big bats, a battle of attrition will take place during every at-bat.

As for the depth of the rosters, it appears the American League might just have the upper hand. With huge hitters in Jose Abreu and Yoenis Cespedes on the bench along with Chris Sale missing out on the initial roster, there is plenty of talent to go around for the AL team.

With the All-Star Game set to start on July 15, here’s a look at the full rosters after the reveal and some of the top projected performers for the Midsummer Classic.

Projected Top AL Performers

Mike Trout, OF, Los Angeles Angels

In a loaded AL lineup, there are several offensive players worthy of taking this honor. But with Trout, baseball fans get a little bit of everything.

The five-tool player is capable of just about anything on the diamond and flashes every tool almost every time he takes the field. Rather than getting big-headed about his ability, Trout remained humble when he earned the starting nod:

Then there’s what he’s done on the field already this season. Hitting .308 with 20 home runs, a 1.005 OPS and 63 RBI, Trout leads the Angels in each category. In a lineup that includes both Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton, that’s saying something for the 22-year-old.

He’s also been one of the most clutch players in the MLB this season, as ESPN Stats & Info notes a pretty remarkable stat:

Don’t worry, he’s still flashing the leather as well. MLB’s official account passes along footage of an insane catch from earlier this month:

If he doesn’t do it with the bat or glove, Trout has a good chance of stealing the show on the basepaths as well. With 10 stolen bases this year, Trout literally could impact every part of the Midsummer Classic with his ability.

Felix Hernandez, RHP, Seattle Mariners

During a season where the Seattle Mariners are working hard to establish themselves as a contender in the AL West, Hernandez has been one of the biggest reasons—as usual.

As absurd as it sounds, Hernandez might just be putting together his best season yet, per MLB:

The 28-year-old might be in line for yet another Cy Young Award with those numbers, but he’s also established himself as the best in the AL so far. King Felix leads the AL in ERA (2.11) and innings pitched (136.1) thus far this season.

Though he likely won’t have several innings to make a difference in the game, Baseball Tonight believes he is one of three starters who might potentially start the contest:

Whether it’s his 90-plus fastball or his devastating breaking pitches, Hernandez has an entire arsenal that will baffle NL hitters. Regardless of whether or not he starts, Hernandez will make an impact for the deep pitching staff.

On the biggest stage during the regular season, Hernandez will come out and prove yet again why he’s considered one of the best in the game.

Projected Top NL Performers

Carlos Gomez, OF, Milwaukee Brewers

We could have stayed with the young guard and said Yasiel Puig. Or maybe gone with last year’s NL MVP in McCutchen. Then there’s the league leader in batting average in Tulowitzki, who also has 18 home runs this season.

But on the All-Star stage, something about Carlos Gomez just screams out MVP potential. For one of the hottest teams in the MLB, Gomez has led the Milwaukee Brewers this season and truly put himself in the same category as some of the National League’s best outfielders.

As the MLB account notes, it’s difficult to crack such an athletic group of players:

The irony here, of course, is that Gomez and Puig, two of the most polarizing figures in the game, both earned starter duties by the fans. While fellow players and some fans might get riled up by their antics, both Gomez and Puig have done enough to be revered by the majority of the MLB audience.

Ian Casselberry of The Outside Corner provides his thoughts on the situation:

Regardless of what some fans might think of Gomez, he’ll certainly bring the wood on July 15. Much like Trout, he has the potential to change the game in a multitude of ways, but his bat will shine at Target Field—a park where he hit a three-run homer just last month.

On a star-studded roster with several potential top performers, look for Gomez to shine.

Clayton Kershaw, LHP, Los Angeles Dodgers

You didn’t think the best pitcher in the game was going to be left off the list, right?

Despite missing the first part of the season for the Dodgers, Kershaw has still been phenomenal. The two-time Cy Young winner is making a case yet again with a 10-2 record, 1.85 ERA, 115 strikeouts and, of course, a no-hitter.

How unhittable has Kershaw been this season? Mark Simon of ESPN shares a look at a heat map from his last four starts:

Kershaw has also made a case to be the All-Star starter on a deep roster with his recent pitching. Along with the low batting average against him, every team during the last 36 innings has been unable to put up a run against him, as ESPN Stats & Info notes:

In a rotation that includes teammate Zack Greinke, Johnny Cueto and Wainwright, Kershaw will once again be the top player to toe the rubber at Target Field. Coming into the game pitching some of the best baseball of his career, he’ll do the same on the All-Star stage.

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In years past, we haven’t gotten many excuses to ask what’s wrong with Clayton Kershaw. That’s a question that you ask when a pitcher is either hurt or ineffective, and Kershaw has rarely been either.

But on one occasion apiece, the Los Angeles Dodgers lefty ace has been both in 2014. He gave us an excuse to ask what was wrong when he went down with an injury around Opening Day, and again when he got annihilated by the Arizona Diamondbacks his last time out.

The answer the first time around turned out to be nothing major.

And after what happened Friday night, the answer the second time around appears to be nothing at all.

Making his fifth start of the season against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, Kershaw allowed only two hits, walked three and struck out nine in six scoreless innings. He also made it to the 100-pitch plateau despite having to sit through a roughly 45-minute rain delay in the fourth inning.

In the end, the Dodgers rode Kershaw‘s six scoreless innings, an RBI single by Yasiel Puig and a solo home run by Carl Crawford to a 2-0 victory. Kershaw dropped his ERA from 4.43 to 3.49, and the Dodgers ran their record to 26-23.

All told, not a bad way for Kershaw to follow up his brutal outing against the Diamondbacks on May 17.

You’ll recall, perhaps against your will, that he lasted only one and two-thirds innings in that one, giving up seven runs on six hits and a pair of walks. According to Bill James’ Game Score statistic, Baseball-Reference.com says it was the second-worst outing of Kershaw‘s career.

Maybe we should have seen Friday’s bounceback coming, though, with one reason being that bouncing back strong from terrible outings is one of many tricks up Kershaw‘s sleeve.

Here’s Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register with some knowledge:

That’s…Um…Well, all you can really say is “wow.”

But while this is cool and all, it’s not the only reason a bounceback start was in the cards for Kershaw. As poorly as he performed, the under-the-radar silver lining is that there wasn’t really anything wrong with him against the Diamondbacks.

It was hard not to at least consider the possibility, of course. It was only Kershaw‘s third start after coming off his month-long stint on the DL with that weird upper back/shoulder injury he came down with in late March. In watching him get lit up, you couldn’t help but fear the worst.

But Kershaw didn’t say anything about feeling any discomfort, telling Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times that he just plain “got hit hard tonight.” For his part, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said he didn’t spot any red flags. 

And judging from the velocity Kershaw displayed against the Diamondbacks, it certainly doesn’t look like he was at less than 100-percent physically. Via Brooks Baseball:

Note: Kershaw also had a start in Sydney, Australia, but there was no pitch-tracking tech to take it all in.

You start worrying that a pitcher is injured when velocity goes down, not when it goes up.

If anything, Kershaw was actually throwing too hard against the Diamondbacks. His fastball command looked all over the place to the naked eye, and the numbers bear that out. Per Brooks Baseball, only 19 of the 33 heaters he threw against Arizona went for strikes. That’s 57.6 percent.

Here’s where we find one instance of Kershaw penning a different story against Philadelphia.

The raw data at Brooks Baseball says Kershaw averaged 94.0 miles per hour with his heater. That’s not 95, but 94 is still pretty good by Kershaw‘s standards, and better than pretty good if he’s controlling it. Which he was on Friday night, throwing 38 of his 55 heaters (about 70 percent) for strikes.

Another thing Kershaw couldn’t do against Arizona was fool anybody with his breaking stuff. He did get four whiffs on the 10 sliders and six curveballs he threw, but also yielded three hits. That’s very unusual, as both Kershaw‘s slider and Uncle Charles tend to be pretty far on the “unhittable” side of the breaking-ball scale.

This is another area where the extra velocity might not have been doing Kershaw any favors, but it could have been a night when he simply didn’t have a feel for his stuff.

That was the opinion of L.A. sports radio host David Vassegh, anyway.

You can probably guess where we’re going from here.

…Yup, Kershaw‘s slider and curve made a comeback against the Phillies.

The raw data says Kershaw threw 30 sliders. On those, he got 13 whiffs and allowed only one hit. And while the raw data says he threw only seven curves, he didn’t allow any hits on those and picked up one of his strikeouts on a wicked one to opposing pitcher Roberto Hernandez in the fifth inning.

That’s Kershaw‘s Friday start in a nutshell: good fastball velocity and command, and two wicked breaking balls.

Which is encouraging, because that’s also Kershaw himself in a nutshell. A good heater and two good breaking balls may not be a complicated recipe for success, but it works for him a lot more often than not.

His go-to pitches weren’t working for him when he got lit up by the Diamondbacks, but it’s apparent that it wasn’t because anything was physically wrong. Rather, it looks like he just had a rough day.

Even Clayton Kershaw is allowed to have one of those from time to time.

Friday night’s stellar outing alleviated the fears that Kershaw‘s body was still not 100 percent, and the future should hold plenty more of the same for him if he starts with the same weaponry he used on the Phillies’ bats.

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Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw is set to make what could be his final rehab start on Wednesday as he inches closer to a return from an upper back injury that has kept him out of action since being scratched from his second start of the season on March 30. 

At the time, the Dodgers had a 2-0 record after sweeping the Arizona Diamondbacks in Australia and were looking primed to continue their dominance of 2013, a season in which they were victorious in 62 of their final 90 regular-season games and advanced to within two wins of a World Series appearance.

Although the other three teams in the division—the Colorado Rockies, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants—had yet to play a game, there had to be at least some concern that the Dodgers were capable of running away from the pack as they did late last season. 

But the injury to 2013 Cy Young Award winner Kershaw, who allowed just one earned run over 6.2 innings during the team’s Opening Day victory over the D-backs, made that much less of a certainty.

In fact, the possibility for one of those teams to build a big lead over a Kershaw-less Dodgers team had quickly become a reality. 

ESPN’s Buster Olney listed a Kershaw injury as one of the top five reasons why the Dodgers wouldn’t win the NL West, comparing his loss to the Dodgers of 1962-1966 losing Sandy Koufax.

MLB Lead Writer Zach Rymer wrote about the window of opportunity that had opened up for the D-backs, Rockies, Padres and Giants and the potential impact that Kershaw’s absence for even a few weeks could have on the race. Rymer‘s advice to the Dodgers’ division rivals: “Win as many games as you can now, while the getting’s good in the NL West race.”

As of today, though, it’s safe to say that none of those division rivals have been able to take advantage of their “head start.” 

The Dodgers haven’t played over their heads without their ace, managing a 12-12 record, while Kershaw‘s fill-in Paul Maholm has been very good in two starts and very bad in two others. 

In the meantime, the D-backs have lost 19 of 27 and are already buried in the division. The Giants have gone 15-11, the Rockies are 15-12 and the Padres are 13-14. Regardless of what happens between now and when Kershaw can conceivably return during the team’s May 5-7 series against the Washington Nationals, the Dodgers won’t be too far behind, if at all.

Their current one-game deficit to the first-place Giants is nothing compared to what they overcame last summer. In a span of one month, from June 22 through July 22, they had not only emerged from a 9.5-game hole, but they had jumped all four division rivals to go from worst to first in the division. By August 22, they had a 9.5-game lead and were on cruise control. 

It’s still a tight race, but it will soon be one in which the Dodgers will have the best pitcher and, arguably, the best rotation. And this time, they’ll have no deep hole to dig themselves out of. 

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That creaking sound you hear coming from the general direction of the NL West is that of a door of opportunity opening up, and it has everything to do with an injured $215 million pitcher.

You know who, as you’ve surely heard that Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw is out with a back injury these days. Given that Kershaw is generally awesome, this is a big enough bummer for the Dodgers. Not to mention all fans who enjoy watching brilliant pitching, of course.

What’s worse is that Kershaw’s outlook is getting iffier by the day. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times noted the latest on Tuesday afternoon, starting with this:

And then this:

Here’s more from Mattingly, via MLB.com: “We’ll let him throw his way back. He’s gotten far enough away that he’ll need a progression [to return]. This is going to take some time.”

Kershaw’s troubles began with him being scratched from the Dodgers’ domestic opener on Sunday against the San Diego Padres, but at the time the Dodgers’ home opener on April 4 was still in play. Ever since then, however, the date of Kershaw’s eventual return has kept getting moved back.

B/R’s Will Carroll warned that was a possibility, writing that the specific injury to Kershaw’s teres major muscle was one that meant a “broad range of timelines” for the star southpaw’s reappearance.

We now know that Kershaw’s return is not going to happen sooner. As for how much later it could occur, the Dodgers tweeted this out:

If Kershaw isn’t even going to be reevaluated for another couple weeks, then a minor league assignment is all but assured. And given that such an assignment would delay his return even further, it’s conceivable that Kershaw won’t be able to make it back before the end of April.

Alex Pavlovic of the San Jose Mercury News hit the nail on the head with his second thought here:

He’s right, you know.

Heck, I’ll do him one better: this might be the best chance the other teams in the NL West get all season to get the better of the Dodgers.

The Dodgers have more talent than the other teams in the NL West. That’s clear just to the naked eye, as the $200-plus million the Dodgers have spent on their 2014 roster does look like money well spent on paper. 

The projections also agree that the Dodgers are easily the best team in the NL West. For example, the PECOTA-based projections at Baseball Prospectus have a nine-win gap projected between the Dodgers and the next-best team in the division.

Even the more modest projections at FanGraphs have a sizable gap projected between the Dodgers and everyone else:

If Kershaw does indeed miss a couple more weeks, however, things obviously stand to change. The Dodgers would be missing out on a couple starts from their ace, and that’s no small deal knowing how valuable Kershaw’s starts are.

FanGraphs can show that Kershaw’s 1.83 ERA last year helped make him worth 8.8 wins above replacement as calculated by runs allowed per nine innings (RA-9 WAR). The rough math says he was therefore worth about 1.5 WAR per month.

Which, as it happens, is exactly how much Kershaw was worth last April when he had a 1.73 ERA in six starts. That wasn’t even his best month, as he was worth 2.4 RA-9 WAR in July when he had 1.34 ERA in six starts.

Even if we assume that Kershaw doesn’t have another sub-2.00 ERA in him and dial things back a bit, it’s still hard to make an argument that losing him for a couple weeks wouldn’t hurt.

Kershaw’s been worth an average of 7.6 RA-9 WAR over the last three seasons, or right around 1.3 RA-9 WAR per month. The next best thing in the National League is Cliff Lee, whose 18.0 RA-9 WAR over the last three seasons comes out to an average of 1.0 RA-9 WAR per month.

The bottom line is that a couple weeks without Kershaw could mean anywhere between 1.0 and 2.0 (or even a bit beyond 2.0) WAR lost for the Dodgers.

It’s not easy to translate that into actual wins and losses, but you can think of it this way: there are only a handful of position players capable of generating between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR in a month. The Dodgers losing Kershaw for a few weeks is basically the equivalent of them losing a superstar everyday player.

The Dodgers still have the goods to be a strong team, sure. But until Kershaw comes back, they’re not going to be the team projected to handily win the NL West. Herein lies the cue for the Diamondbacks, Giants, Padres and Rockies:

Win as many games as you can now while the getting’s good in the NL West race.

Even better for these four clubs is that each will have a chance to inflict damage on the Dodgers directly. Including the series against the Padres that the Dodgers are in the middle of right now, six of the eight full series out of the gate on their domestic schedule are against NL West competition.

It’s conceivable that Kershaw would have been able to pitch in five of the six, which might have meant five wins for the Dodgers against NL West foes. But with Kershaw no sure bet to return in April, the stage is set for the pendulum to swing in the opposite direction. 

And that could be enough to lead to an upset in the NL West race. Many games are left to be played after the first month of the season is in the books, but losses in April count just as much as losses in any other month.

A couple days ago, the Dodgers were such a huge favorite to win the NL West that the matter was hardly worth discussing. But that was when the Dodgers were still looking at getting a full season from the most dominant pitcher in baseball.

With him sidelined, suddenly the Dodgers don’t look so tough.

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Following Saturday morning’s 3-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Los Angeles Dodgers have won their season opener in four consecutive years for the first time since 1963-66, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Such a streak comes as no surprise, given that the Dodgers had ace Clayton Kershaw on the mound for each of those four games.

The left-hander made his first Opening Day start in 2011, holding the San Francisco Giants scoreless for seven innings. The following year, he came down with an illness and had to be removed from the opener early, after tossing three shutout innings against the San Diego Padres in a game that the Dodgers would ultimately win, 5-3. 

Opening Day 2013 was the best of the bunch, with Kershaw facing just 30 batters in a complete-game shutout versus the archrival Giants. It was one of the more memorable early-season games in recent history, as the fire-balling lefty broke a scoreless tie in the eighth inning by hitting the first home run of his career.

While he’s pretty good in the batter’s box by a pitcher’s standards, Kershaw still has just the one home run and a mere three doubles in 347 career at-bats.

Saturday morning’s game may not have been as exciting as the Dodgers’ 2013 opener, but Kershaw still played a leading role, allowing one run in 6.1 innings with seven strikeouts on the way to his first of many wins this season. While the game itself was nothing special, the 26-year-old ace will always be able to say that he took the winning decision in the first MLB game played in Australia.

Given an Opening Day track record that includes just one run over 25.1 innings, it’s tempting to say that Kershaw steps his game up for the first start of the season. However, the sample size is still rather meaningless, as it’s hardly out of the ordinary for the Dodgers ace to string together a similarly impressive string of starts.

Another Opening Day win will surely be appreciated in Los Angeles, but the goal is to win the season’s last game, not it’s first. Having said that, the last time the Dodgers won four consecutive openers, they captured championships in two of those seasons (1963 and 1965), with a National League pennant in 1966 to boot.

Led by the legendary duo of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, those Dodgers teams surprisingly used three different Opening Day starters over the four-year period, with Claude Osteen joining the aforementioned pair of Hall of Famers.

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The distance between Los Angeles, Calif., and Sydney, Australia, is roughly 7,500 miles or 6,500 nautical miles. For Los Angeles Dodgers lefty Clayton Kershaw, the difference between an $11 million salary in 2013 and a $215 million contract extension is even bigger.

Despite the unique circumstances around Major League Baseball’s Opening Day and Kershaw‘s freshly minted status as the highest-paid arm in the history of the sport, his dominance remains the same. 

In baseball, money seems to change the production and trajectory of stars on a yearly basis. After signing the record-breaking deal in the offseason, Kershaw took the mound at the Sydney Cricket Ground eager to make fans remember him for performance, not salary.

With an excellent game (6.2 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 7 SO, 1 BB), the 26-year-old lefty did just that. Kershaw toyed with the Arizona Diamondbacks and lifted the Dodgers to the first of what should be many wins during the 2014 season. 

The contract and status as the best pitcher in the sport will follow Kershaw throughout the season, but don’t expect the added pressure, expectations or dollar figure to change the once-in-a-generation talent.

That was evident during his last frame in Australia. When Dodgers manager Don Mattingly walked to the mound to remove his ace from the game, Kershaw bristled.

On March 22, the team can’t push its most important player past the 101-pitch mark. Surely Kershaw understood why he was being removed from the game, but it didn’t matter.

As a competitor and staff leader, he wanted to continue mowing down Arizona’s lineup. 

After posting an unsightly 9.20 ERA across 14.2 spring training innings, Kershaw found fastball command and featured his typical filthy array of curveballs and sliders against a hapless and confounded Diamondbacks lineup.

Despite the spring struggles, Mattingly didn’t panic or show any concern during the Cactus League slate, per Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:

Good thing is, it’s Spring Training, that’s why we’re here. He had the same kind of spring last year. He has a level of expectation of always being good. I don’t have a problem with that. He expects to be in midseason form, and we keep working toward that. He gets frustrated. That’s why we love him.

Among the great qualities Kershaw possesses on the mound—velocity, command, work ethic, drive, stamina—none supersedes his desire to compete, win and perform at the highest level possible. 

One game into the 2014 season, the 2013 version of Kershaw was on display.

Last season, on the path to a third consecutive ERA title, he had 17 games of at least 6.2 innings pitched and allowing one or fewer earned runs. As you would imagine, that was more than any starter in baseball by a wide margin. 

As the season progresses, expect a slew of double-digit strikeout and low walk totals from a pitcher who has sported a 4.20 SO/BB since the start of the 2011 season, per Baseball-Reference.

In the season opener, Kershaw merely posted a 7-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. For him, that’s a typical outing. For others, it’s a career day.

Last year, he had 12 outings of at least seven strikeouts and no more than one walk, tying Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez for the league lead, per Baseball-Reference (subscription required). Since the start of the 2011 season, Kershaw has pitched 29 games of equal performance. 

On Opening Day, the country was different, and the field and surface were foreign. 

But when the bell rang, nothing changed for a starter on the verge of a rare career. For Kershaw, the opening tilt in Sydney might as well have been an innocuous June start against the Padres in San Diego.

That, more than seven strikeouts or run-suppressing pitching, is what stood out. 

As 2014 recorded its first chapter, the narrative read much like the story of 2013 when it came to Kershaw‘s performance. 

Agree? Disagree?

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Statistics are from Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted. All contract figures courtesy of Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Roster projections via MLB Depth Charts.

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Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher on the National League‘s best team. After a 92-win season, trip to the NLCS and Cy Young campaign for the dominant southpaw, expectations were set to be sky high for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2014.

That was before the team handed Kershaw a seven-year, $215 million contract extension during the offseason.

Now, with the most expensive arm in the history of the sport and a payroll over $200 million, anything short of a World Series appearance and start-by-start dominance from Kershaw will be a major disappointment for Dodgers fans.

Don’t expect that type of reaction at Chavez Ravine this season. Although the success of Kershaw and the Dodgers are separate, winning is clearly intertwined. 

If Kershaw continues to dominate the sport, Los Angeles will win baseball games. If the Dodgers offense provides the lefty with adequate run support, another eye-popping season will commence for one of the best young pitchers the game has ever seen. 

On the path to greatness, Kershaw‘s career has begun to unfold alongside the best to ever toe the rubber in any generation. 

Among pitchers with at least 1,000 innings pitched—allowing long-time relievers like Mariano Rivera the chance to be part of the discussion—Kershaw‘s ERA+ of 146 is the seventh best in baseball history, per Baseball-Reference (subscription required).

At face value, that statistic is amazing. Yet, when considering the names below him on the list—Clemens, Johnson, Maddux, Koufax—it becomes startling. 

That dominance hasn’t been a product of luck or happenstance. Kershaw‘s ability to dominate and overpower hitters has been evident by a career strikeout rate of 9.2 K/9. With 1,206 career strikeouts under his belt, Kershaw ranks ninth in punch-outs among pitchers through their respective age-25 campaigns. 

Factor in durability—five straight years of 30-plus starts—and it’s easy to see why the Dodgers were comfortable allotting $215 million to the ascending ace. 

Now, the fun begins.

As Kershaw traverses through his prime and gigantic contract, expectations will only rise. With two NL Cy Young’s under his belt, baseball fans know how great he’s been. Over the next few years—starting in 2014—a new Kershaw watch will begin: The path to all-time greatness.

On an outing-by-outing basis, fans will come to expect overwhelming dominance. Beyond the causal observer, projections systems and analysts will tout the best pitcher in baseball as a lock for 20-plus wins and excellence across statistical categories. 

If Kershaw is sweating the expectations, he’s not showing it yet. 

According to Jon Weisman of Dodger Insider, the 26-year-old lefty is ready for the increased expectations and doesn’t see the negative to the hype surrounding his game and fame:

I don’t think there’s a negative. I think it’s how you look at it. Obviously, there’s gonna be a lot of expectations as it should be, if your salary’s out there and you’re one of the top players in the game, you’re gonna be expected to be one of the best players in the game. That’s fine with me. I look forward to those expectations and look forward to trying to live up to them.

Those expectations won’t just follow Kershaw in 2014.

PECOTA—an acronym for Baseball Prospectus’ Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm—is notoriously hard to impress. When preseason win projections arrive annually, the projection system routinely groups teams within 10 games of .500.

It’s very hard to stand out from the crowd in the eyes of PECOTA. Yet, as Matt Snyder of CBS Sports pointed out, the projection system has the Dodgers slated for a 98-win campaign in 2014. 

Led by Kershaw, the Dodgers are expected to dominate the NL West and arrive back to October as one of the few teams in the league with a legitimate chance to make a trip to the World Series.

As baseball fans have seen over the years, October baseball can be very, very difficult to project and predict. It’s safe to say that the best team doesn’t always win it all. With variance separating similar teams and short series superseding the marathon nature of the 162-game regular season, October can take favorites and render them disappointments. 

For the Dodgers and Kershaw, it’s hard to imagine a season without a trip to October. 

Yet, many fans will call this season a disappointment if Kershaw—after another Cy Young campaign—isn’t the winning pitcher in a championship-clinching World Series game.

Those expectations are unfair and over the top.

Instead, expect the following criteria to be met: From Opening Day through the end of the regular season, Kershaw and the Dodgers will dominate the NL West, win 95-plus games and give fans a glimpse at this generation’s best pitcher on a weekly basis. 

Using that baseline, Kershaw and the Dodgers will live up to expectations. If October turns into a coronation for baseball’s most expensive roster, they could exceed them with a championship parade in Los Angeles.

Agree? Disagree?

Comment, follow me on Twitter or “like” my Facebook page to talk about all things baseball.

Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs, unless otherwise noted. All contract figures courtesy of Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Roster projections courtesy of MLB Depth Charts.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com