In a recent article, Washington Post reporter Neil Greenberg wrote that Washington Nationals right-hander Max Scherzer “is overtaking Clayton Kershaw as MLB’s best pitcher.” While it is impossible to argue that the 32-year-old Scherzer isn’t having a Cy-Young-caliber 2017 season, calling the two-time Cy Young award winner a better overall pitcher than Dodgers ace and four-time Cy Young award winner (and 2014 NL MVP) Clayton Kershaw is, quite frankly, a bit of a reach.

When you consider that Scherzer has a career record of 133-74 and Kershaw a career mark of 136-62, it’s easy to see why Greenberg might think that Scherzer is almost as good as Kershaw. But when you figure in Scherzer’s career earned run average of 3.31 over 10 MLB seasons versus Kershaw’s 2.38 career ERA also over 10 MLB seasons (not to mention those two addition Cy Young awards and that MVP title), it really isn’t even close.

But while Greenberg has his focus narrowed in on arguably the two best pitchers on the planet (with the edge going to Kershaw, in spite of what Greenberg thinks), Dodgers left-hander Alex Wood may actually be better than both of these future Hall of Famers – at least this season.

Check this out. Even though Wood needs another 7.1 innings pitched to be eligible for MLB’s official statistics (as of this writing), his current 1.86 ERA would be the best in the National League and the second best in all of baseball behind only Houston Astros left-hander Dallas Keuchel‘s remarkable 1.67 ERA. As such, and despite having thrown 40.2 fewer innings than Kershaw, it would take four complete game shutouts plus an additional 5.2 scoreless innings (for a total of 41.2 scoreless innings) by Kershaw for him to lower his ERA to match that of Alex Wood, and that simply isn’t going to happen. That being said, Alex Wood would have to continue at his current torrid pace to maintain or even lower his remarkable 1.86 ERA, and that probably won’t happen either, although it certainly could.

Whether it’s his funky delivery or his ability to mix up his pitches that has made Alex Wood one of the best pitchers in the game this season, whatever it is, it’s working.
(Photo credit – Jill Weisleder)

The one thing that Wood is lacking that both Kershaw and Scherzer have is the ability to go deep into games. In fact, Wood has made it past the sixth inning only four times this season in his 11 starts, whereas Kershaw and Scherzer have both done so 11 times in their 15 starts thus far. This alone skews Wood’s ability to maintain his remarkable ERA going forward. But here again, it certainly could happen. And even though Kershaw currently has a National League best 10 wins heading into tonight’s action against the second place Colorado Rockies (I just had to get that in), he also has two losses compared to Wood’s spotless 8-0 record. (By the way, Scherzer is currently 8-5 on the season, so take that, Neil Greenberg).

The point to all of this is that even though Alex Wood is currently only 7.1 innings from becoming the National League’s official MLB ERA leader (which will increase by another four innings before his next scheduled start), he may very well be the dark horse to win the 2017 NL Cy Young award over Max Scherzer or Clayton Kershaw.

…and wouldn’t that be something.