Chris Sale was one of the top left-handed pitchers that Tarik Skubal looked up to when he was a teenager. Now, the two will always be connected after both won their first Cy Young Awards on Wednesday.
Skubal was a unanimous choice for the American League Cy Young Award after an outstanding season with the Detroit Tigers. Sale’s win in the National League capped an amazing comeback with the Atlanta Braves after injuries had slowed him down since helping the Boston Red Sox win the 2018 World Series.
“It means a lot. It’s a special night,” Sale said. “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 and Sale both led MLB with 18 wins this season and were dominant in their leagues.
Sale went 18-3 and led the NL with 225 strikeouts, while his 2.38 ERA in 29 starts was the best in the majors. This was his first season in the National League after starting his career in 2010 with the Chicago White Sox.
Skubal, who turned 28 on Wednesday, had a record of 18-4 with a 2.39 ERA and the most strikeouts in the majors with 228 in 31 starts. He received all 30 first-place votes in the AL voting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America before the playoffs started.
Sale received 26 first-place votes, with Zack Wheeler of the Philadelphia Phillies getting the other four.
“If you look at his career, it’s no surprise that he’s winning this award,” Skubal said about Sale. “To be able to share this award and win it the same year, and win the same triple crown award in the AL and NL, that’s something that’s really special to me, and it’s awesome. I’ll be able to live with that the rest of my life.”
Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes finished third in the NL voting, just two days after being named the NL Rookie of the Year. Kansas City’s Seth Lugo was the AL runner-up, and Cleveland’s Emmanuel Clase (47 saves) placed third.
This is the first time since 2011 that someone won the pitching triple crown in both leagues. There have been 25 times a pitcher led their league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA among qualifiers, and a Cy Young Award followed all 16 times it’s happened since the award was first given in 1956.
Sale didn’t have any major injury problems in his first season with the Braves until he was scratched from the final regular-season game because of back spasms, which Atlanta had to win to reach the playoffs. He was then left off the roster for their Wild Card Series loss to San Diego.
The Braves traded for Sale in December after he had made only 31 starts with the Red Sox between 2021 and 2023. He missed the 2020 season and most of 2021 due to Tommy John surgery, then dealt with a rib fracture and a broken left pinkie in 2022. In 2023, he broke his right wrist in a biking accident, which ended his season with Boston.
Sale was named the NL Comeback Player of the Year at Major League Baseball’s All-MLB Awards Show last week.
“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 Sale’s third time finishing among the top three in Cy Young voting. He was the AL runner-up in 2017 after his first season with the Red Sox, behind Corey Kluber. He also finished third in 2014 with the White Sox, while Kluber won the award that year.
Sale earned the eighth Cy Young Award for the Braves. Many of these were won in the 1990s when Greg Maddux won three in a row with Atlanta from 1993-95, after winning the 1992 Cy Young with the Chicago Cubs. Tom Glavine won twice (1991 and 1998), and John Smoltz won in 1996. Warren Spahn was the first Braves pitcher to win the award in 1957 when the team played in Milwaukee.
Detroit now has six Cy Young Awards. Denny McLain won back-to-back awards in 1968 and 1969, and reliever Willie Hernández was the 1984 winner. Justin Verlander won a Cy Young with the Tigers in 2011, and Max Scherzer took home the award in 2013.
Skubal had Tommy John surgery at Seattle University before the Tigers drafted him in the ninth round of 2018. He made his MLB debut in 2020 and had a great season this year, going at least six innings in 25 of his 31 starts.
He was 6-0 in his first nine starts and finished the season strong with another 6-0 record in his last nine starts, as the Tigers made a surprising push for the playoffs.
He made his postseason debut with 17 consecutive scoreless innings before giving up five runs in the fifth inning, 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.
“I was able to kind of get over it relatively quickly just because I was so proud of our team and what we were able to accomplish,” Skubal said. “And if I’m going to be the one to fail, I love that, because, you know, it’s only going to set our team up to have success in the future.”
Based on where they placed in voting, Clase earned a $150,000 bonus, while Sale and Lugo each earned $100,000. Wheeler received a $50,000 bonus.
