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.
