CLEVELAND — Atlanta's Chris Sale and Detroit's Tarik Skubal each won their first Cy Young Award on Wednesday night after the left-handers shared the MLB lead with 18 wins while leading their respective leagues in strikeouts and ERA.
Sale was 18-3 and topped the National League with 225 strikeouts, while his 2.38 ERA in 29 starts was the best among all major league qualifiers in his first season with the Braves. The 35-year-old was an All-Star for the eighth time and won his first Gold Glove this year.
Skubal, who turned 28 on Wednesday, went 18-4 with a 2.39 ERA and a major league-best 228 strikeouts in 31 starts for the Tigers. He was a unanimous winner in voting for the AL prize by the Baseball Writers' Association of America that was completed before the playoffs, and both he and Sale won their league's respective pitching Triple Crowns by putting up the top marks in wins, ERA, and strikeouts.
Skubal beat out two fellow finalists for the honor: Kansas City Royals ace Seth Lugo as well as Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase. Clase was Cleveland's first Cy Young finalist in three years and finished third in the balloting with nine second-place votes.
Clase, the AL's Mariano Rivera Reliever of the Year winner, set a Guards single-season record with a league-leading 47 saves while also posting a 0.659 WHIP and a 0.61 ERA, the latter mark being the second-lowest ever by any MLB pitcher with at least 70 innings during a given year. Despite his historic campaign, a Cy Young triumph was always going to be difficult, as a reliever has not won the award since 2003.
In a bit of a nice surprise, Cleveland rookie Cade Smith finished 10th in the balloting with a single fifth-place vote, following a year that saw him go 6-1 with a 1.91 ERA and 103 strikeouts across 75 1/3 innings. He and Clase join José Mesa as the only relievers in club history to receive Cy Young votes, with Mesa finishing runner-up to Hall of Famer Randy Johnson back in 1995.
Since the Cy Young Award's establishment in 1956, every pitcher who has won their league's Triple Crown has gone on to win the Cy Young that same season. Sale and Skubal are the 15th and 16th on the list.