Written by Pedro Moura at Los Angeles Times
Washington’s Max Scherzer and Boston’s Rick Porcello, former teammates with the Detroit Tigers, won the National League and American League Cy Young awards Wednesday.
Scherzer became the sixth pitcher to garner Cy Young awards in both leagues. He was the 2013 AL winner with Detroit. In 2016, he led the NL in innings, strikeouts, games started and wins.
“For some reason, this one means so more to me,” Scherzer said on a conference call. “It just verifies that everything that I go out there and try to achieve works.”
The Chicago Cubs’ Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks finished in second and third place in the balloting by 30 members of the Baseball Writers’ Assn. of America, two from each league market.
Scherzer was the only man to receive more first-place votes than Clayton Kershaw, who received two despite throwing only 149 innings. He won 25 of the 30; Lester received one and Hendricks two. But 19 voters left Kershaw off their five-man ballots and soMadison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants, who did not receive a first-place vote, finished fourth, one spot in front of the Dodgers ace.
In the AL, Verlander received 14 of 30 first-place votes but was left off both ballots submitted by Tampa-based voters and finished second. Porcello and third-place finisherCorey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians each were among all voters’ top five selections.
All three finalists finished closely in earned-run average and innings. Kluber and Verlander had the advantage in strikeouts; Porcello had more wins.
“You get into those top three guys and it’s kind of like everyone’s deserving of the award, at that point,” Porcello said on a conference call. “I didn’t break it down into sabermetrics. I knew the basic lines we all had.”
Porcello, Verlander and Scherzer were teammates with the Tigers from 2010 to 2014.
“That’s the weird thing about these things: the voting,” Scherzer said. “You never know exactly how it’s going to shake out.”
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