Clayton Kershaw was almost impossible to hit in 2014 .Los Angeles Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw and Cleveland Indians starter Corey Kluber shared baseball's stage on Wednesday by winning the Cy Young Award in their respective leagues.

Kershaw's selection was not a surprise, but Kluber's emergence was. He edged out two pitchers who had terrific seasons, Felix Hernandez and Chris Sale, to take the honor.

Kershaw does it again

Kershaw won his third Cy Young Award, all coming in the past four seasons.

What made Kershaw so good?

3 Cy Young Awards in 4-Year Span
MLB History

Kershaw held opposing hitters to a .196/.231/.289 slash line. His .521 opponents’ OPS was the lowest in the majors. He struck out 239, walked only 31 and allowed only nine home runs in 198 1/3 innings pitched.

Kershaw threw 69 percent strikes, the second-highest rate in the National League, trailing only Jordan Zimmermann.

His 178 strikeouts with his curve and slider ranked second in the majors, trailing only Corey Kluber’s 188. He had 50 more than the National League pitchers with the next most (Tyson Ross and Adam Wainwright).

The key for Kershaw was that he could beat you in the strike zone or out of the strike zone. Opponents missed on 20 percent of their swings against Kershaw's pitches in the zone, fifth best in the majors.

They missed on 48 percent of swings against his pitches thrown out of the strike zone, also fifth best.

He was the only pitcher to be in the top five on both lists.

Kershaw excelled at getting out of jams. Opponents hit only .190 against him with runners in scoring position, fourth best in the majors and second best in the National League behind Cy Young runner-up Johnny Cueto.

Kershaw also helped his own cause on the defensive side. He led National League pitchers with seven defensive runs saved.

Kluber edges Hernandez

A dominant second half helped propel Kluber past Mariners ace Felix Hernandez, making him the first Indians pitcher to win the award since Cliff Lee in 2008. Other Indians to win the honor are Gaylord Perry in 1972 and CC Sabathia in 2007.

Kluber was 9-3 with a 1.73 ERA with 127 strikeouts, 19 walks and only four home runs allowed in 104 innings after the All-Star break. After getting routed by the Tigers on Sept. 1, Kluber was 5-0 with a 1.12 ERA and 54 strikeouts in his final five starts of the season.

Kluber became the first American League pitcher with a sub-2.50 ERA and at least 260 strikeouts since Pedro Martinez in 2000. He’s the first Indians pitcher to hit those benchmarks since Luis Tiant and Sam McDowell in 1968.

The Elias Sports Bureau notes that Kluber is one of only five different pitchers who had seasons in which they posted a sub-2.50 ERA, struck out at least 250 batters and had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of at least 5-to-1, and is the first since Randy Johnson in 2001.

Kluber’s out pitch was a curveball that netted 126 strikeouts, the most of any pitcher in baseball. He had the highest strike rate with the pitch of anyone who qualified for the ERA title (72 percent). And got hitters to miss it at a higher rate than anyone else (54 percent of swings).

Did You Know

Stetson University has produced six major league pitchers -- Bill Swaggerty, George Tsamis, Eric Knott, Lenny DiNardo, Corey Kluber and Jacob deGrom. The only two active guys -- deGrom and Kluber -- have won two major awards this season, the NL Rookie of the Year award and AL Cy Young respectively.