Subway must really love its Los Angeles baseball megastars. Last year, Angels outfielder Mike Trout was featured in Subway commercials that seemed to be played every five minutes on ESPN. While annoying, it was somewhat refreshing after having to constantly see Jared for 15 years. This year, Subway has made Dodgers ace and reigning NL MVP Clayton Kershaw the focus of its advertising campaign. Clayton apparently has been eating Subway sandwiches before starts for years.
With his Subway order, Kershaw chooses fresh made turkey and cheese on nine grain wheat with jalapenos, mustard, and a little bit of vinegar. After seeing this commercial, I immediately was asking questions. What kind of an effect could each ingredient have on Kershaw’s pitching?
Each ingredient required a careful, in-depth analysis:
Fresh Made Turkey: Shouldn’t it be “freshly made” instead? Nice grammar, Clayton. That is what happens when you skip college and go straight from high school to the majors. I, on the other hand, have the knowledge to know that he made a grammatical error. See, Clayton? Thanks to The University of Iowa, I have perfected my language skills. What do you have? More than 100 wins? More than 1500 K’s? Three Cy Young Awards, a Triple Crown, and an MVP? Oh, please. I would take the language skills every day of the week. In regards to the turkey, it is a great source of vitamins and protein. Turkey has been known to help build muscle mass. This part of his Subway sandwiches must be the reason why he can remain healthy while throwing more than 223 innings per year on average in each full season he has played. With 17 career complete games, Kershaw’s durability has never been a question.
Cheese: Let me tell you, the fact that he simply only said “cheese” really bugged me. Subway has eight different kinds of cheeses, Clayton! After contacting a few cheese experts (I looked online), I learned that Kershaw prefers swiss cheese. Why did he need to hide this? My best guess is because one standard serving of swiss cheese contains five grams of saturated fat. If he has four slices on his footlong, that would be 100% of the recommended daily amount of saturated fat consumption. Personally, I think omitting the specific cheese information was a good choice. I have a hard time believing that the Dodgers would sign a guy who eats 20 grams of saturated fat before every start to a seven year deal worth $215,000,000.
Nine Grain Wheat: Is this a way of masking how unhealthy the cheese is? In all seriousness, wheat is a very good source of potassium. Could that be how he gets so many K’s? Yes, I just made a periodic table joke. I would like to immediately apologize for that one.
Jalapenos: Based on the jalapenos, it is obvious that Kershaw does not fool around with his sandwiches. This makes sense, because he does not fool around with hitters, either. In his career, Kershaw has averaged an incredible 9.5 K’s per nine innings, which is good enough for the sixth best rate in the history of the game. Randy Johnson is the only left-handed pitcher with a higher strikeout per nine inning rate than that of Kershaw. Johnson averaged 10.6, and this mark actually tops the list. Also, being from Texas, I am sure that Kershaw has eaten spicy foods throughout his whole life. Eating a sandwich full of jalapenos must make him feel as if he is back in high school and throwing for the Highland Park Scots. Here, he threw a perfect game by striking out every single batter. You should pick up this delicious sandwich and watch the video of this perfect game online. Kershaw is also ninth on the all time WHIP list and has an amazingly low career ERA of 2.56. Again, he simply does not fool around.
Mustard: Have you ever heard the phrase, “Put some extra mustard on it” when referring to pitching? The mustard on Kershaw’s sandwich must be related to his fastball’s high velocity. This season, Kershaw’s fastball has been clocked at more than 95 mph on average. A velocity of 95 mph is 3 mph higher than the average MLB fastball velocity. Clearly, you should eat mustard if you want to throw hard. Somewhere, Jamie Moyer is kicking himself for being a ketchup guy.
A Little Bit of Vinegar: You can use vinegar to cook thousands of different foods, cure illness, and to clean almost anything. Like vinegar, Clayton Kershaw is very versatile. Not only is he one of the greatest pitchers of all time, he also a very good hitter, a world-class fielder, and a great person off the field. From 2011 until 2014, Kershaw hit .197, which is far better than the .131 average batting average for pitchers in that span of time. He won a Gold Glove in 2011 as well. In the community, he and his wife dedicate a large portion of their time to the charity they founded entitled Kershaw’s Challenge. As a result of his off of the field work, Kershaw has won both the Roberto Clemente Award and the Branch Rickey Award.
As for the steady diet of fastballs, that is clearly a joke. What a funny guy!
I have a confession to make: because I am a huge Clayton Kershaw fan, I immediately went to Subway and ordered this exact sandwich. It was very, very good. I highly recommend picking one up for just $5. Sure, you can call me crazy, but how can you argue against eating what Clayton Kershaw swears to eat on a regular basis? All I can say is that you won’t be making jokes when I am all of a sudden throwing 95 and have a slow curveball that breaks three feet. After eating this sandwich, I might go from writing for KRUI about baseball, to having my co-writers at KRUI writing about my baseball abilities. A guy can dream, right?
