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 went 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.
“It means a lot. It’s a special night," said Sale, derailed by a string of injuries the past several seasons. "I just can’t express how thankful I am for everybody that stuck by me. It would have been easy to jump ship and write me off.”
Skubal, who turned 28 on Wednesday, went 18-4 with a 2.39 ERA and a big league-best 228 strikeouts in 31 starts for the Tigers. He was a unanimous winner in voting for the American League prize by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America that was completed before the playoffs.
“All the hard work, all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, moments like this make it extremely worth it," Skubal said, also in an interview on MLB Netowrk.
Sale received 26 of 30 first-place votes in the NL. Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Zack Wheeler got the other four and finished second. Hard-throwing Pittsburgh Pirates righty Paul Skenes was third only two days after being selected the NL Rookie of the Year.
Kansas City starter Seth Lugo (16-9, 3.00 ERA) was runner-up to Skubal, and Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase (47 saves) came in third.
Clayton Kershaw had been the NL’s last pitching triple crown winner in 2011, which was also the previous time both leagues had a pitcher accomplish the feat. Kershaw won the first of his three Cy Young Awards with the Los Angeles Dodgers that year, and 24-game winner Justin Verlander took the AL honor for Detroit.
With Sale and Skubal this season, there have been 25 times when a pitcher led his league in wins, strikeouts and ERA among qualifiers. A Cy Young Award followed every time.
“Chris Sale’s a guy that when I was going to college and in high school, you idolize left-handed pitchers, and kind of how he competes and goes about his business, it’s pretty special to watch,” Skubal said. “I met him at the All-Star Game and that was really, really cool, so to be able to share this moment with him is really special and something that I’ll cherish the rest of my life.”
Beset by injuries since helping Boston win the 2018 World Series, Sale didn’t have any major issues in his Braves debut until he was scratched because of back issues from their final regular-season game, which they needed to win to make the playoffs. He was then left off the roster for their Wild Card Series loss to San Diego.
Atlanta acquired Sale in a trade last December after he made only 31 starts for the Red Sox from 2021-23. He missed the 2020 season and most of 2021 after Tommy John surgery. He made only two starts in 2022 after he fractured a rib and then broke his left pinkie. He broke his right wrist riding a bicycle in August 2023, ending his final season with Boston.
Sale was named the NL Comeback Player of the Year last week at Major League Baseball’s All-MLB Awards Show.
“Talk about motivation, right? To be able to show my sons hard work, dedication and not giving up. My wife had my back the whole time. I’m sure I was a real peach at times during some of those injuries,” he said. “And just with my parents, my family, I was talking to my dad the other day about this and whether it did or didn’t happen, he was proud of me.”
This was the third time Sale finished among the top three in Cy Young Award voting. He was the AL runner-up in 2017 after his first season with Boston behind Corey Kluber, who was also the Cy Young Award winner in 2014 when Sale finished third while with the Chicago White Sox.
Sale won the eighth Cy Young Award for the Braves organization. Most of those came in the 1990s, when Greg Maddux won three in a row with Atlanta from 1993-95 — after being the 1992 winner with the Chicago Cubs. Tom Glavine won twice (1991 and 1998), and John Smoltz was the 1996 winner. Warren Spahn was the first in 1957 when the Braves played in Milwaukee.
Detroit now has six Cy Young Awards. Denny McLain won back-to-back in 1968 and 1969, and reliever Willie Hernández was the 1984 winner. Verlander’s Cy Young Award with the Tigers came two years before Max Scherzer win in 2013.
Skubal made his big league debut in 2020, two years after the Tigers drafted him in the ninth round.
In an unforgettable 2024 regular season filled with dominant performances, Skubal pitched at least six innings in 25 of his 31 starts. He was 6-0 in his first nine starts, and also finished the season the same way — 6-0 in his last nine starts while the Tigers made their surprising push to the playoffs.
He made his playoff debut with 17 consecutive scoreless innings before a five-run fifth that including a grand slam by Cleveland’s Lane Thomas in the deciding Game 5 of their AL Division Series. That 7-3 loss ended the Tigers' season.
“There’s only one happy team at the end of the year, but it was a ton of fun to be a part of," Skubal said. "It’s the memories, and obviously the experience will help our club going forward. So it was really fun, and I’m glad that we got to experience that as a team, especially as a young team, too, so it’s only up from there.”
The 22-year-old Skenes is the fifth rookie to finish among the top three in Cy Young Award voting. Only Fernando Valenzuela won both awards in the same year, in 1981 with the Dodgers in the National League.
Clase, with a 0.61 ERA in 74 1/3 innings over 74 games, is the first reliever to finish among the top three in Cy Young voting since San Diego closer Trevor Hoffman came in second for the NL award in 2006.
