Gerrit Cole was a unanimous winner of his first American League Cy Younger Award on Wednesday, and Blake Snell took the Nationwide League honor in changing into the seventh hurler to earn baseball’s prime pitching prize in each leagues.
After coming shut a number of instances earlier than, Cole lastly completed on prime following an excellent season for the New York Yankees. The ace right-hander obtained all 30 first-place votes in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Affiliation of America.
Minnesota Twins right-hander Sonny Grey was the runner-up with 20 second-place votes, and Kevin Gausman of the Toronto Blue Jays completed third.
Cole went 15-4 with an AL-low 2.63 ERA and 222 strikeouts in 209 innings, main the league in innings, as nicely. He turned the sixth Yankees pitcher to win a Cy Younger and first since Roger Clemens in 2001.
The six-time All-Star twice got here in second in Cy Younger voting and completed within the prime 5 three different instances.
Snell joins elite firm
Snell was the NL winner after main the majors in ERA for the San Diego Padres.
The free-agent lefty was picked first on 28 of 30 ballots. San Francisco Giants right-hander Logan Webb completed second and Zac Gallen of the NL champion Arizona Diamondbacks was third.
Snell, the AL Cy Younger Award recipient in 2018 with Tampa Bay, joined Gaylord Perry, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Clemens, Roy Halladay and Max Scherzer as pitchers to win in each leagues.
Shaking off a dreadful begin to the season, Snell went 14-9 with a 2.25 ERA and 234 strikeouts in 180 innings over 32 outings for a disappointing Padres group that completed 82-80 regardless of baseball’s third-highest payroll.
He was 1-6 with a 5.40 ERA after shedding to Boston on Could 19, then dominated the remainder of the best way regardless of topping the majors with 99 walks this yr. Harnessing his 95-96 mph heater and overpowering curve, Snell gained eight of his final 9 choices and didn’t enable a run in 5 of his ultimate six begins – together with the final three.
Snell gave up solely 5.75 hits per 9 innings, by far one of the best mark within the majors. All these stingy numbers whereas he was on the mound have been greater than sufficient to beat out Webb (11-13, 3.25 ERA) and Gallen (17-9, 3.47), who every logged no less than 210 innings. Each received one first-place vote.
Snell, who turns 31 subsequent month, turned a free agent after the World Sequence and rejected a $20,325,000 qualifying supply from the Padres on Tuesday to pursue a extra profitable contract.
The 4 earlier San Diego pitchers to win the Cy Younger Award have been Randy Jones (1976), Perry (1978), reliever Mark Davis (1989) and Jake Peavy (2007).
