First-time Cy Young winners Chris Sale, Tarik Skubal secure MLB's most prestigious pitching award after drastically different journeys

For just the third time in the honor’s illustrious history, the Cy Young Awards in both leagues have been won by left-handers: Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and Atlanta’s Chris Sale.

In 1977, Yankees closer Sparky Lyle became the first reliever in American League history to win the award, and Phillies ace Steve Carlton claimed the second of what would be four total Cy Youngs over the course of his 24-year Hall of Fame career. Twenty-five years later, a young southpaw named Barry Zito broke out with Oakland to claim the 2002 AL Cy Young, and legendary lefty Randy Johnson punctuated his unparalleled run of dominance in the desert with his fourth consecutive NL Cy Young and fifth total.

And in 2024, we have a fantastic duo of lefties in the 28-year-old Skubal and 35-year-old Sale, with each earning the accolade for the first time after drastically different journeys to this point. Sale, who also won the NL Comeback Player of the Year award last week, secured 26 of 30 first-place BBWAA votes in the NL Cy Young voting announced Wednesday. Skubal received all 30 first-place votes in winning the AL Award unanimously on his birthday.

Barely known as a prep pitcher growing up in Arizona, Skubal grabbed scouts’ attention as a freshman at Seattle University — hardly a hotbed of premium hardball talent — but fell off the radar following Tommy John surgery early in his sophomore year. The Tigers selected him in the ninth round in 2018 after a solid junior season in his return from surgery, and Skubal instantly made waves in Detroit’s minor-league system, dominating A-ball and finishing his first professional season with nine strong starts in Double-A.

His big-league debut followed during the shortened season in 2020, but Skubal’s transition to the major-league level was bumpy. In his first full year in the Tigers’ rotation in 2021, he racked up a healthy number of strikeouts but also surrendered 35 home runs, tied for third-most in MLB. Both his four-seamer and his sinker — which at the time were more 94-95 mph than the 97-98 mph fireballs we see today — were getting positively punished, and Skubal had yet to figure out the most effective mix of his secondary weapons.

An uptick in sliders and changeups in 2022 helped Skubal make notable strides in preventing the long ball, and he appeared to be trending toward becoming a stable mid-rotation option for Detroit. Then he hit the injured list in early August and underwent flexor tendon surgery, cutting his promising season short and delaying the start to his 2023 campaign. It seemed to be a frustrating derailment for a young pitcher looking to establish himself.

But when Skubal returned to the big leagues in July '23, he was a different — and more determined — pitcher. His velocity made a jump, and his command of his entire arsenal seemed enhanced, with his devilish changeup emerging as one of the premier off-speed pitches in the league. Skubal was simply brilliant down the stretch, reaching a new gear with each outing and earning AL Pitcher of the Month honors in September.

Skubal’s epic finish to 2023 earned him substantial hype entering the offseason and subsequent spring, with hope that he could maintain the momentum and prove his newfound ace status over a full season. The hype, as we now know, proved to be entirely justified. Skubal got even better in 2024 as the headlining act on an upstart Tigers team that made an improbable push to the postseason. After a marvelous regular season that secured his Cy Young, Skubal’s encore in October was even more enthralling, as he threw scoreless gems against Houston and Cleveland before surrendering an ill-timed grand slam to Lane Thomas as Detroit’s Cinderella run came to an end in ALDS Game 5.

Considering his humble beginnings as a relatively unknown amateur prospect, Skubal’s rise is a gigantic achievement, and it should not go underappreciated. It is the product of both his tremendous talent and a renowned work ethic that is revered by teammates and coaches. But relative to Sale, Skubal took the express lane to winning this prestigious award. He got healthy, his stuff and command ticked up, and in his first season as a full-fledged ace, Skubal earned the crown designed to celebrate the best pitcher in the league — unanimously, no less.

If only it were that simple for Sale.

While Sale took a much quicker route to the top of a major-league rotation, his path to pitching’s most prized accolade was far lengthier.

If Skubal’s rise to becoming a frontline starter at the highest level was something of a slow burn, Sale’s ascent occurred in a relative blink. The 13th overall pick by the White Sox out of Florida Gulf Coast University in 2010, Sale was expedited to Chicago. Two months after hearing his name called on draft night, a 21-year-old Sale made his major-league debut as a reliever for a White Sox team pushing for a playoff berth. Although Sale had excelled as a starting pitcher in college, he remained in Chicago's bullpen in 2011 and continued to stifle opposing bats.

A return to the rotation was in order, and Sale reacclimated masterfully. For the next five years, he was not just the unquestioned ace atop the White Sox’s rotation but also one of the most feared left-handers in the sport. The strikeouts piled up at ridiculous rates, as Sale overwhelmed opponents with his unique arm angle and wicked fastball/slider combination. By the time Sale was the age Skubal is now, he’d already made five All-Star games.

But all the while, the White Sox kept losing, raising Sale’s profile as a possible trade candidate rather than a pitcher who would someday start a postseason game on the South Side. Recall that Skubal, too, was the subject of heavy trade speculation last winter and as recently as this past July, but the Tigers held on to their ace and reaped the rewards.

The White Sox, however, were in need of a hard reset. They pulled the trigger on a Sale deal following the 2016 season, sending him to Boston for a four-player package headlined by Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech. It was one of the biggest blockbusters of the decade, and it put immense pressure on Sale to continue to perform on a far bigger stage. He didn’t just live up to the titanic expectations — he somehow got even better. Sale led all pitchers in innings and strikeouts in 2017, but it wasn’t enough for him to win his first Cy Young, as he finished runner-up to Cleveland ace Corey Kluber.

In 2018, Sale continued to shine atop the Red Sox’s rotation. He became just the third pitcher in MLB history to start three consecutive All-Star Games, joining Robin Roberts (1953-55) and Lefty Gomes (1933-35). And though he missed a handful of starts in the second half due to a shoulder injury, he returned in time to pitch during Boston’s dominant run through October, including striking out Manny Machado for the final out of the World Series.

In Boston, Sale’s effectiveness soared to new heights, and the collective goal was achieved with his first championship. But the ultimate individual prize continued to elude him. He finished fourth in Cy Young voting in November 2018, marking his seventh consecutive year in the top six on the ballot — with no award to show for it.

Sale started slowly in 2019 (6.30 ERA in April), but he still looked like his best self on occasion: a career-high 17 strikeouts against Colorado in May, a 12-strikeout shutout in Kansas City in June, 13 strikeouts with zero walks and two hits across eight scoreless frames against the Angels in August. The high points were there, but the consistency was not. The velocity fluctuated, and so did the results. Sale had a 4.40 ERA when he went on the injured list on Aug. 17 due to an elbow injury, one that ultimately required surgery the following March. Sale missed all of 2020 and looked OK in nine starts upon his return to the big leagues in August 2021, leaving room for optimism entering 2022. But after seemingly putting his elbow issues behind him, a rib fracture and a finger injury limited Sale’s 2022 contributions to just 5 ⅔ innings.

With three seasons lost to injury — 602 pitchers threw more innings than Sale’s 48 ⅓ frames in 2020-22 — Sale’s prime seemed firmly in the rearview mirror. He appeared destined to finish his career on the short list of elite starting pitchers whose prolific peaks never garnered a Cy Young, despite placing high on the ballot on multiple occasions, joining the likes of Adam Wainwright, Curt Schilling, Nolan Ryan and Dave Stewart. Perhaps Sale would be healthy enough to pitch a few more seasons, but it was hard to feel bullish about the remainder of his career.

But then, 2023 quietly offered some encouraging signs. It wasn’t the smoothest season, to be sure: Sale was terrible in April (6.75 ERA) and missed two months in the middle of the year due to a shoulder injury. Add the fact that the Red Sox were mired in mediocrity, and it was difficult to get excited about any sort of Sale renaissance. But the final results from Sale’s 20 starts in his return to Boston’s rotation reflected a pitcher whose elite skill was largely intact; the dude was still missing bats. Although the velocity was a tick down, Sale’s 29.4% strikeout rate ranked 10th in MLB (min. 100 innings), and nearly all of his underlying metrics rated favorably, despite a modest 4.30 ERA.

This sneaky stellar performance gave the Braves enough confidence to not only trade for the left-hander entering the final year of his contract but also immediately extend Sale for potentially two seasons beyond 2024 — a decision that looks awfully prudent now.

Entering 2024, Sale projected to slot into the middle of the Braves’ rotation behind the incumbent anchors in Spencer Strider and Max Fried. But once Strider went down due to a season-ending elbow injury in April, it was Sale who stepped up and became the ace of the Atlanta staff. Not only did he log his highest innings total (177 ⅔) since 2017, but he also won his first ERA title, a feat unquestionably helped by the lowest HR/9 of his career.

As a result, the pair of Cy Young southpaws, with eerily similar season totals — Sale went 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts, while Skubal went 18-4 with a 2.39 ERA and 228 strikeouts — became just the fifth duo in MLB history to win the pitching Triple Crown in their respective leagues in the same year and the first since Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw in 2011.

Unlike Skubal, whose magnificent campaign extended into October, Sale did not get the opportunity to pitch in the postseason. He experienced back discomfort in his final regular-season outing Sept. 19 in Cincinnati, and his velocity was notably down in that start, despite allowing just two runs over five innings. Though little was reported about Sale’s condition over the final days of the season, the injury resurfaced in stunning fashion when it was announced that Sale would not be available to pitch in Atlanta’s must-win Game 162 against the Mets due to back spasms. After the Braves nonetheless won that game and clinched a postseason spot, Sale was unavailable for Atlanta’s wild-card series against San Diego. It was the final devastating, ill-timed injury in a Braves season full of them.

That Sale’s season ended on something of an ominous note serves as a reminder to appreciate greatness on the mound when it’s in front of us. While Sale has already defied injury scares to reclaim his position among the game’s elite hurlers, there’s no guarantee that he — or any pitcher, regardless of injury history — can replicate such a special season. Hopefully he’ll report to camp in February ready to lead Atlanta’s rotation once again, but it’s tough to determine a reasonable expectation for his workload moving forward, especially considering that he’ll turn 36 in March.

For Skubal, we can hope that this is just the beginning of a lengthy reign as one of the premier southpaws in baseball. In Sale’s case, the honor feels like an overdue coronation of one of the best pitchers of a generation. It was quite the wait — and an unlikely road to get here — but Sale finally arrived at the destination he long sought.

In that sense, anything that comes after this will be gravy.