Tarik Skubal cemented his status as one of baseball’s elite, capturing his second consecutive American League Cy Young Award, while Paul Skenes followed his rookie breakout by becoming the unanimous National League Cy Young winner (30 first-place votes).
Skubal, the Detroit Tigers left-hander, took 26 of 30 first-place votes, topping Garrett Crochet and Hunter Brown in the AL balloting. He is the first pitcher to repeat as Cy Young winner since Jacob deGrom in 2018-19 and the first AL pitcher to do it since Pedro Martínez (1999-2000). Skenes joins a short list of pitchers who won the award in their first or second big-league seasons — Fernando Valenzuela, Bret Saberhagen, Dwight Gooden and Tim Lincecum.
Skubal went 13-6 with a 2.21 ERA, 241 strikeouts and 195 1/3 innings pitched. He led the AL in Baseball-Reference WAR (6.5) and FanGraphs WAR (6.6) and paced qualified AL starters in ERA, strikeout rate (32.2%), lowest walk rate (4.4%), opponent OBP (.240) and OPS allowed (.559). His fastball averaged nearly 98 mph and his changeup held hitters to a .154 batting average, accounting for roughly 110 of his strikeouts. Skubal recorded 12 scoreless
