The American League Cy Young award is staying in Detroit.
For the second consecutive year, Tigers ace Tarik Skubal has won the AL Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in the league.
Skubal, 28, led the league with a 2.21 earned-run average with 241 strikeouts over 195.1 innings pitched with a 13-6 record in 31 starts. His WHIP of 0.891 led every qualified pitcher in the majors.
Skubal beat out finalists Garrett Crochet of the Boston Red Sox and Hunter Brown of the Houston Astros.
Skubal’s season started with an unusual rough patch, as the lefty allowed seven earned runs over 10.2 innings in his first two appearances of the year. From there, though, it was brilliance from the sixth-year ace.
Skubal allowed just four runs in his next six starts, and allowed more than three runs just five times across his 31 starts on the season.
His crowning appearance was a complete game shutout of the Cleveland Guardians on May 25; Skubal needed just 94 pitches to shut down the Guardians lineup, with 13 strikeouts and no walks.
Skubal’s control of the strike zone vaulted him over the competition. His 33 walks on the season were fewest of any pitcher to log more than 150 innings this season, and his strikeout to walk ratio of 7.30 was almost two full points higher than the next-best in that category in the AL – Crochet, at 5.54.
Skubal becomes the first pitcher to win back-to-back Cy Young Awards since Jacob deGrom won in 2018 and ’19 with the New York Mets, and first AL pitcher to win the award in consecutive seasons since Pedro Martinez did so for the Red Sox in 1999 and 2000.
This is the 12th instance in MLB history in which a pitcher won the Cy Young Award in consecutive years.
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Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes has added another trophy to his shelf.
The lanky righty won the National League Cy Young award as the top pitcher in the league on Wednesday.
A year after taking the league by storm and winning NL Rookie of the Year award, Skenes continued his dominance with an MLB-best 1.97 earned-run average and NL-best 0.948 WHIP. He collected 216 strikeouts in 187.2 innings.
Skenes beat out finalists in Philadelphia Phillies lefty Cristopher Sanchez and Los Angeles Dodgers righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Skenes, 23, finished the season with a 10-10 record, with his 10 wins tying Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets in 2018 for the fewest wins by a Cy Young-winning starter in a non-strike-shortened season in MLB history – that win total helped by his team scoring just 11 runs combined over his 10 losses.
Skenes’ 1.97 ERA was more than a half run lower than his next closest competitor in the Senior Circuit, and his strikeout total set a Pirates record for a righty.
After Skenes finished third in Cy Young voting as a rookie a season ago in just 23 starts, this award was almost a foregone conclusion coming into the season.
Skenes struggled through a difficult start in his third game of the year, where he allowed five runs against the St. Louis Cardinals, but he put together a dominant run over his next 11, allowing 12 earned runs over 72.2 innings with 10 quality starts.
Skenes is the first Pirates pitcher to win the Cy Young since Doug Drabek in 1990, and third in franchise history.
