Clayton Kershaw dominates Giants as Dodgers clinch the National League West title - MLB

Los Angeles has secured the 2014 NL West crown.

Clayton Kershaw struck out 11 batters and walked none over eight innings of one-run ball and Yasiel Puig slugged his 16th home run of the year as the Dodgers beat the visiting Giants 9-1 on Wednesday night to clinch their second consecutive division title.

Kershaw was brilliant, throwing 83 of his season-high 117 pitches for strikes and also contributing an RBI triple in the bottom of the fifth. He finishes the 2014 regular season at 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, and 239/31 K/BB ratio in 198 1/3 innings. “M-V-P” chants rang out from the sold-out Dodger Stadium crowd when the ace left-hander recorded the final out of the eighth with a strikeout of Pablo Sandoval.

The team that faces these Dodgers in the NLDS will have to take on Kershaw twice. That is daunting.

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NEW YORK (AP) Video reviews overturned 42.4% of calls checked during Major League Baseball’s shortened regular season, down slightly from 44% in 2019.

Boston was the most successful team, gaining overturned calls on 10 of 13 challenges for 76.9%. The Chicago White Sox were second, successful on eight of 11 challenges for 72.7%, followed by Kansas City at seven of 10 (70%).

Pittsburgh was the least successful at 2 of 11 (18.2%), and Toronto was 7 of 25 (28%).

Minnesota had the most challenges with 28 and was successful on nine (32.1%). The New York Yankees and Milwaukee tied for the fewest with nine each; the Yankees were successful on five (55.6%) and the Brewers three (33.3%).

MLB said Tuesday there were 468 manager challenges and 58 crew chief reviews among 526 total reviews during 898 games. The average time of a review was 1 minute, 25 seconds, up from 1:16 the previous season, when there 1,186 manager challenges and 170 crew chief reviews among 1,356 reviews during 2,429 games.

This year’s replays had 104 calls confirmed (19.8%), 181 that stood (34.4%) and 223 overturned. An additional 12 calls (2.3%) were for rules checks and six (1.1%) for recording keeping.

In 2019 there were 277 calls confirmed (12.5%), 463 that stood (34.1%) and 597 overturned. An additional nine calls (0.7%) were for rules checks and 10 (0.7%) for record keeping.

Expanded video review started in 2014.