PHILADELPHIA – Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sánchez on Tuesday night finished second for the NL Cy Young Award.
Pittsburgh right-hander Paul Skenes won unanimously with 30 first-place votes and 210 points. Sánchez received all 30 second-place votes to finish with 120 points. Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto finished third with 72 points. Phillies left-hander Jesús Luzardo finished seventh with five points. Phils right-hander Zack Wheeler finished ninth.
Skenes and Sánchez were the only pitchers to appear on every ballot.
It is the first time the winner received all 30 first-place votes, and the runner-up received all 30 second-place votes since the BBWAA went to a five-pitcher ballot for Cy Young in 2010.
Sánchez, 28, is the second Phillies pitcher in the past five years to finish second for Cy Young. Wheeler finished second in both 2021 and `24, losing to Milwaukee’s Corbin Burnes and Atlanta’s Chris Sale, respectively. The Phillies have won seven Cy Young Awards in their history: Steve Carlton (1972, `77, `80 and `82), John Denny (1983), Steve Bedrosian (1987) and Roy Halladay (2010).
Sánchez would have been the fourth Dominican pitcher to win the award. Pedro Martinez (1997, `99, 2000), Bartolo Colon (2005) and Sandy Alcántara (2022) won previously.
But Skenes’ remarkable season – 10-10 with a 1.97 ERA – was unbeatable.
Sánchez impressed, too. He went 13-5 with a 2.50 ERA in 32 starts. He struck out a career-high 212 and walked 44 in a career-high 202 innings. He led MLB with 8.0 bWAR. He finished second in the NL with 6.4 fWAR.
He also stepped up in Wheeler’s absence, when Wheeler developed a season-ending blood clot near his right shoulder in August.
Sánchez was fun to watch, particularly when his changeup was working. Opponents batted .170 against it, which ranked 11th out of 96 pitchers (minimum 250 changeups thrown). They whiffed at it 45.1 percent of the time, which ranked second only to Tarik Skubal (minimum 250 swings at a changeup). Sánchez struck out 130 batters on his changeup to lead baseball.
No other pitcher in baseball struck out more batters on single offspeed pitch or breaking ball than Sánchez’s changeup.
Wheeler had thoracic outlet decompression surgery on Sept. 23 in St. Louis. Recovery time is generally six to eight months. Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said last month that they are hopeful Wheeler will be ready to rejoin the rotation close to Opening Day.
If not, the Phillies have Sánchez ready to roll on Opening Day.