Los Angeles Dodgers lefthander Clayton Kershaw easily beat out last year's winner Roy Halladay on Thursday to win the National League's Cy Young award for the top pitcher.
The 23-year-old Kershaw received 27 of 32 first-place votes in voting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
Philadelphia's Halladay finished second with four first-place votes, 21 seconds and seven thirds while his Phillies teammate Cliff Lee was third.
It marked the 10th Cy Young trophy won by a Los Angeles pitcher. The others are Don Newcombe (1956), Don Drysdale (1962), Sandy Koufax (1963, 1965 and 1966), Mike Marshall (1974), Orel Hershiser (1988) and Eric Gagne (2003).
"I'm still uncomfortable with it," Kershaw said.
"I don't want to have any disrespect for Mr Koufax. He did it for a long time. He won a lot of awards and he won World Series. He threw no-hitters. Just a lot of things I'm not anywhere close to accomplishing yet. I have tremendous respect for him and would never want to ever put myself in the same category as him."
Kershaw led the league with a 2.28 earned run average and 248 strikeouts. He registered 21 victories and just five losses.
The pitcher was especially dominant in the last eight weeks of the season, going 8-0 with a 0.96 ERA.
He won 12 games at Dodgers Stadium and had just one loss at home during the regular season.
Hershiser said Kershaw is only going to get better.
"He's just scratching the surface of what he can become and I know he can reach much higher limits," Hershiser said.
Los Angeles has a chance to sweep the two major National League awards. Matt Kemp is a frontrunner to win the most valuable player award, which is announced Tuesday.
Source: AFP American Edition
