Atlanta’s Chris Sale and Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, a pair of left-handed starters who each won an MLB-high 18 games while leading their respective leagues in strikeouts and ERA for qualifiers, are among the finalists for the Cy Young Awards..
Sale is a finalist for the National League award after going 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts for the Braves, before he was scratched from their final regular-season game and missed their Wild Card Series loss to San Diego because of back issues.
Skubal, who turned 28, led the majors with 228 strikeouts while going 18-4 with a 2.39 ERA in 31 starts. He was 1-1 with a 2.37 ERA in three postseason starts for the Tigers, those games coming after voting for the awards was completed by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America at the end of the regular season.
Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase and Kansas City starter Seth Lugo (16-9, 3.00) join Skubal as AL finalists. The other NL finalists are Philadelphia starter Zack Wheeler (16-7, 2.57 ERA) and hard-throwing Pittsburgh starter Paul Skenes, the 22-year-old right-hander who was named the NL Rookie of the Year.
Skenes is only the fifth rookie to finish among the top three in Cy Young Award voting. Only Fernando Valenzuela won both in the same year, in 1981 with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League.
Clase, with 47 saves and a 0.61 ERA in 74 1/3 innings over 74 games, is the first reliever to finish in the top three since San Diego’s Trevor Hoffman finished second for the NL award in 2006.
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