Despite yet another dominant season on the mound, Clayton Kershaw fell short of his fourth National League Cy Young Award on Wednesday night, finishing as runner-up to Nationals ace Max Scherzer.
Kershaw received three first-place votes, 25 second-place votes and a vote apiece for third and fourth place from the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He finished with 126 points -- 75 shy of Scherzer, who became the first repeat winner since Kershaw in 2013-14.
:: NL Cy Young Award voting totals ::
Scherzer also joined Kershaw as the only active pitchers to win the award three times. The Nationals' Stephen Strasburg finished third.
Kershaw -- a Cy Young Award winner in 2011, '13 and '14 -- is now the first pitcher to finish in the top five in Cy Young Award voting in seven consecutive seasons since Greg Maddux did so from 1992-98. He took home his fifth ERA title, too, posting a 2.31 mark over 175 innings and 27 starts in 2017.
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Kershaw also led the National League in wins (18) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (6.73), while his 0.949 WHIP was good enough for second. He piled up 202 strikeouts, despite missing five weeks with a lower back strain. Ultimately, the back strain likely cost him in the eyes of voters, as Scherzer compiled similar numbers, but did so over four extra starts.
• All-time NL Cy Young winners
The award is based solely on 2017 totals, but Kershaw's impressive season moved him closer to the top of some franchise leaderboards. He ranks among the Dodgers' all-time leaders in wins (8th, with 144), strikeouts (4th, with 2,120) and innings (13th, with 1,935).
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