Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets won his second straight National League Cy Young Award Wednesday night, with two Washington Nationals aces not far behind.
Max Scherzer finished in third place and Stephen Strasburg came in fifth in Cy Young voting.
deGrom won 29 of the 30 available first-place votes and 207 votes overall. Los Angeles Dodgers starter Hyun-Jin Ryu claimed the other first-place vote and finished with 88 votes, and Scherzer earned 72.
Strasburg earned 53 votes, including six for second place. Even the Nationals’ No. 3 starter Patrick Corbin got in on the act, earning one fifth-place vote.
Scherzer finished the regular season 11-7 with a 2.92 ERA, a 1.027 WHIP and 243 strikeouts to just 33 walks. His rate of 12.7 strikeouts per nine innings ranked as the fifth-highest single-season mark in baseball history.
He was named an All-Star for the seventh year in a row and earned NL Pitcher of the Month honors for June, a month in which he went 6-0 with a 1.00 ERA and an astonishing 68-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
With just 27 starts, 2019 was the first time since his rookie year that Scherzer did not start at least 30 games. He missed most of July due to two stints on the injured list to recover from a muscle strain in his back, and he was not as dominant as he was in June once he returned.
That ultimately hindered Scherzer’s chances at the Cy Young this year, while deGrom put together another incredible campaign. The Mets’ star posted a 2.43 ERA (including just 1.44 since the All-Star break), with an NL-best 255 strikeouts and a 0.971 WHIP over 32 starts.
This is the fourth straight season Scherzer finished in the top three in voting for the award. Scherzer is a three-time Cy Young winner, honored in 2016 and 2017 as a member of the Nationals and in 2013 with the Detroit Tigers. He came in second to deGrom last year.
Meanwhile, this marks Strasburg’s second-best finish in Cy Young voting after coming in third in 2017. He led the league in pitcher wins this year, going 18-6, and struck out a career-high 251 batters to go with a 1.038 WHIP.
Though they came up short of the Cy Young, Scherzer and Strasburg instead can remember 2019 for their first World Series title.
Strasburg won World Series MVP honors, and Scherzer started Game 7 of the World Series three days after neck spasms forced him to miss a start. However, all awards are voted on before the postseason begins.
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.