:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/57493229/usa_today_10326963.0.jpg)
LOS ANGELES — Clayton Kershaw on Monday was named as one of the top three finishers in National League Cy Young Award voting, with the Dodgers ace joined by Nationals teammates Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg.
The Cy Young Award winners, voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America, will be revealed on Wednesday, Nov. 15 in a 3 p.m. PT program on MLB Network.
Assured of a top-3 finish in 2017, Kershaw joins Greg Maddux (1992-98) as the only pitchers to finish in the top five in Cy Young voting in seven consecutive seasons. The only other pitcher with even six such seasons in a row was Roy Hallday (2006-11).
Kershaw was 18-4 with a 2.37 ERA in 27 starts for the Dodgers in 2017, with 202 strikeouts and 30 walks in 175 innings. He led the National League in ERA for a fifth season and despite missing five weeks with lower back tightness tied for the major league lead in wins.
He led the National League in xFIP (2.84) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (6.73), and finished second in walk rate (4.4%), K-BB% (25.3%), and SIERA (3.04), fourth in FIP (3.07), fifth in fWAR (4.6) and sixth in rWAR (4.6).
Kershaw, who won the NL Cy Young Award in 2011, 2013 and 2014, is one of just eight pitchers with six top-3 finishes in Cy Young voting, and the first to have six such seasons before turning 30.
Most top-3 finishes in Cy Young Award voting
| Pitcher | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | Top 3 | Top 5 | Top 3 before age 30* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pitcher | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | Top 3 | Top 5 | Top 3 before age 30* |
| Roger Clemens | 7 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 5 |
| Randy Johnson | 5 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 | 1 |
| Greg Maddux | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 9 | 5 |
| Jim Palmer | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 2 |
| Tom Seaver | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 8 | 3 |
| Pedro Martinez | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 7 | 4 |
| Tom Glavine | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 4 |
| Clayton Kershaw | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 6 |
| Steve Carlton | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 1 |
| Roy Halladay | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 2 |
A small caveat here: From 1956-66, the Cy Young Award was a major league award before separating into one for each league beginning in 1967. Through 1969, there was only one vote per ballot, making it much harder if not impossible in some years to have down-ballot finishers. From 1970-2010 the Cy Young ballot contained three names, and since 2011 the ballot has had five names.