Home United States USA — Events Max Scherzer and Corey Kluber Win Cy Young Awards

Max Scherzer and Corey Kluber Win Cy Young Awards

349
0
SHARE

The awards, the third for Scherzer and the second for Kluber, came after a frustrating end to the season for both pitchers.
It was a strange season for pitching. For the first time in a nonstrike season, no pitcher in the majors worked 215 innings or won 19 games. Starters pitch less and less, leaving more and more games to be determined by the bullpen.
The culprits are clear enough. Analytics tend to support the use of fresh relievers, rather than tiring starters, as the games go on. And as velocity rises across baseball, so do concerns about overuse and injury. Complete games have fallen by 50 percent in just four seasons, from 118 in 2014 to 59 this year.
Durability, such as it is these days, should be celebrated. On Wednesday it was, with Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals and Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians adding to their collection of Cy Young Awards.
Scherzer took his second National League honor in a row and his third Cy Young over all; he also won in the American League for Detroit in 2013. Kluber captured his second A. L. award, having also won for Cleveland in 2014. Kluber received 28 of 30 first-place votes, while Scherzer received 27.
Kluber was 18-4 with a major league-low 2.25 E. R. A., while Scherzer was 16-6 with a 2.51 mark. Both excelled at keeping hitters from reaching base, with Kluber posting the lowest WHIP (walks plus hits per inning) in the majors at.869, and Scherzer leading the N. L. at .902.
Both also were among the 15 major leaguers who reached 200 innings this season, yet their workloads might have caught up to them at the end. Both took losses in the decisive fifth game of a division series, at home, to end their season — Kluber as a starter, Scherzer in relief. Both had finished September with injuries that altered their postseason plans.
The Indians bumped Kluber to Game 2 of their series with the Yankees, and although they were vague about his health, his performance was alarming: a 12.69 E. R. A. in two starts, including four home runs. Kluber had back trouble early in the season, and Indians Manager Terry Francona acknowledged after Game 5 that Kluber had been “fighting a lot” of physical issues.
Likewise, the Nationals could not use Scherzer to open their division series with the Chicago Cubs. He hurt his hamstring in his final start of the regular season, but pitched six and one-third no-hit innings in Game 3 at Wrigley Field.
Yet because of the hamstring, the Nationals had planned to keep Scherzer at around 100 pitches and pulled him after he gave up a double with his 98th pitch. They lost that game, won Game 4 and handed Scherzer a 4-3 lead in the fifth inning of Game 5, on two days’ rest. After two quick outs, he allowed four runs (two earned) that put the Cubs ahead to stay.
It was another frustrating finish for the Nationals, who have won the N. L. East in four of the last six seasons without advancing in the playoffs. They fired Manager Dusty Baker after the season and replaced him with Dave Martinez, who had been the bench coach for the Cubs.
Clayton Kershaw, the N. L. runner-up, led the Los Angeles Dodgers to the World Series after another dazzling regular season. Despite missing more than five weeks in the summer with back problems, Kershaw went 18-4 with a 2.31 E. R. A., the best in the N. L. A three-time Cy Young Award winner, he has finished in the top five in each of the last seven seasons.
The A. L. runner-up, Chris Sale of the Boston Red Sox, went 17-8 with a 2.90 E. R. A. and 308 strikeouts this season, the most in the majors in 15 years. But Sale had a sluggish finish, with a 4.09 E. R. A. in August and September, months in which Kluber’s E. R. A. was 1.42.
Sale now has five consecutive top-five finishes without winning the award — a quirky feat also accomplished by the Dodgers’ Don Sutton in the N. L. from 1972-76. Sutton never appeared on a Cy Young ballot again, but he pitched 12 more seasons and went on to the Hall of Fame.
Sale, 29, worked the most innings in the majors this season, with 214⅓. But just like Kluber and Scherzer, he ended his year with a thud. After losing his start in Game 1 of a division series in Houston, Sale lost again in relief, at home, to end Boston’s season.
Luis Severino of the Yankees finished third in the A. L. voting, and Stephen Strasburg was third in the N. L.

Continue reading...