For much of the year, it's felt like the favorite for the NL Cy Young award has been between Paul Skenes and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the aces of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Los Angeles Dodgers' staff, respectively. After Friday night's games, some MLB fans are wondering whether Skenes has already sewn up the award.
To answer that question bluntly, nothing can be completely sewn up in June, with over three months remaining in the regular season. I mean, for a brief moment, it felt as if Kodai Senga was going to join the Cy Young conversation before he suffered his injury. Plus, can we really rule out guys like Zack Wheeler, Chris Sale, and Logan Webb from making things interesting?
Still, while nothing is finalized, it feels as if Skenes is pulling away from the pack by the day, with Friday being a clear example of that.
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Paul Skenes looks like the clear NL Cy Young favorite after Friday's game vs. Cubs
Was Skenes at his best on Friday? Absolutely not. He allowed four hits and issued two free passes while only managing to complete five innings. Still, even without his best stuff, he kept the high-powered Chicago Cubs' offense off the board entirely and struck out five. His offense didn't give him a single run of support, as has become customary, but Skenes' ability to keep the game scoreless played a pivotal role in what turned out to be a Pittsburgh victory.
With those five scoreless innings, Skenes now has a 1.78 ERA in 15 starts and 96 innings of work. Those 96 innings pitched lead the National League, and his 1.78 ERA ranks only behind Senga among NL qualifiers. With Senga on the IL for who knows how long, he will no longer qualify for the ERA title in short order, making Skenes the eventual leader in that category. Oh yeah, Skenes is just 17 strikeouts away from the league lead as well.
To put it clearly, Skenes has a legitimate shot at winning the Triple Crown this season. It's still only June, so there's time for Skenes to potentially regress or for other candidates to pitch their way into the race, but for now, it does feel as if it's Skenes' award to lose.
This especially feels like the case because of how poorly Yamamoto pitched on Friday.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave Paul Skenes a commanding NL Cy Young award lead with clunker vs. Giants
Yamamoto started a pivotal game at Dodger Stadium on Friday against a San Francisco Giants team that the Dodgers are fighting with to gain control of the NL West. Skenes was able to shine against his team's biggest rival, but Yamamoto faltered.
He failed to complete five innings for the first time all year, falling one out shy of that mark while allowing five runs on six hits. Four of those runs came in an abysmal third inning, which saw Yamamoto issue free passes to three of the first five batters he faced and then give up a grand slam to Casey Schmitt.
Yamamoto's ERA skyrocketed from 2.20 to 2.64 after his rough outing, and he now has 18 fewer innings pitched than Skenes while also striking out seven fewer batters. Yamamoto trails Skenes in just about every important metric, raising the question of whether he'd even be the runner-up to Skenes if the regular season ended today.
There's still time for Yamamoto and others to make things interesting, but Skenes delivering another scoreless outing while his top competitor got shelled undoubtedly expanded what was already a clear lead for Pittsburgh's right-hander.