Inside Clayton Kershaw's MLB Debut against St Louis Cardinals 12 Years Ago

Twelve years after he made his debut, Clayton Kershaw has continued to break records in the baseball game.

Clayton Kershaw became a force to reckon with on the baseball field when he made his Major League debut as a professional baseball pitcher for the LA Dodgers in 2018.

Twelve years later, the left-handed pitcher has set a record for himself and earned several notable recognitions, including five ERA titles, according to a post shared by MLB Stats on Twitter.

[Clayton Kershaw] has also joined Sandy, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martínez, Jim Palmer, and Randy Johnson as the only pitchers to earn a Cy Young three times in four years.

According to Dodgers Insider, Clayton was just 19 years old when he snapped the unbelievable two-strike curveball that started at the Red Sox veteran, Sean Casey's shoulders and looped to his knees for a called third strike.

Dodgers Nationals added that that game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Dodger Stadium saw the pitcher rock the number 54, which was different from the 22 that many baseball fans have become used to seeing these days.

It was also the game that saw Clayton face-off against Albert Pujols, who hit an RBI double to deep centre field.

In response, the Dodgers entered two runs that came off of a Luis Maza solo home run and an RBI (run batted in) double from Russell Martin. Clayton ended the game with two runs on five hits in six innings, striking out seven, and walking one.

Dodger Blue noted that from then on, Clayton took occasional turns in the Dodgers rotation into July and he was optioned back to Jacksonville Suns following a start on July 1 of the same year.

However, the baseball star returned to the Dodgers before the month's end and stayed with them for that season and into the playoffs.

Since then, Clayton's career has continued to blossom as Baseball-Reference revealed that he passed Sandy Koufax to assume the third place on the Dodgers' all-time strikeout list with 2,397 on August 1, 2019.

Before the end of that month, the left-hander again outdid Sandy to become the left-handed pitcher with the most wins in franchise history. He finished that year at 16-5, 3.03, with 189 strikeouts in 178 1/3 innings in his twenty-nine games.

According to Britannica, the baseball star has also joined Sandy, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martínez, Jim Palmer, and Randy Johnson as the only pitchers to earn a Cy Young three times in four years.