It’s unanimous: Verlander and Alcantara best
Houston’s Justin Verlander in the American League and Miami’s Sandy Alcantara in the National League were both unanimous selections for the Cy Young Award annnounced Wednesday.
It’s the second time the winners in both leagues were unanimous since the award began in 1956 and the first since Detroit’s Denny McLain in the AL and St. Louis’ Bob Gibson in the NL swept in 1968.
Verlander, a 39-yearold who also won the award in 2019 after winning both MVP and the Cy Young in 2011, becomes the 11th player to win it three times. He also won unanimously in 2011.
Verlander led the majors with a 1.75 ERA — the lowest of his 17-year career — after missing almost all of the previous two seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery. He becomes the fourth AL pitcher with two unanimous victories, joining Roger Clemens (1986, 1998), Pedro Martinez (1999, 2000) and Johan Santana (2004, 2006).
Verlander led the Astros to the best record in the AL, and though the postseason doesn’t count for the award, he got his first career World Series win in Game 5 as Houston beat Philadelphia in six games.
Alcantara had a 2.28 ERA while working a major-league-best 2282⁄3 innings and six complete games. It’s the first Cy Young for the 27-year-old from the Dominican Republic, who becomes the first Marlins pitcher to receive the honor.
Alcantara received all 30 first-place votes, the 15th time the NL has had a unanimous winner. Atlanta’s Max Fried was second with 72 points, including 10 second-place votes, and Los Angeles Julio Urías was third 66 points and seven secondplace votes.
Behind Verlander, who was the 11th AL pitcher to win unanimously, was Dylan Cease of the White Sox with 97 points and 14 second-place votes and Toronto’s Alek Manoah with 87 points and seven second-place votes. The three pitchers were named on every ballot.
Verlander’s 18 wins led the AL, and he had 185 strikeouts to give him 3,198 in his career, which ranks first among active pitchers.
Alcantara’s six complete games were the most in the majors since Chris Sale had six in 2016. The two-time All-Star went 14-9 and threw seven or more innings in 13 straight starts from May 11 through July 15, which was the longest such streak since 2014.
He joins Martinez (1997) as the only player born in the Dominican Republic to win the NL award. Martinez also won twice in the AL (1999, 2000) and the other Dominican winner in the AL was Bartolo Colon in 2005. Mariners, Jays trade: Seattle made one of the first big moves of the offseason by acquiring outfielder Teoscar Hernández from Toronto in exchange for two pitchers.
Fresh off the team’s first playoff appearance in more than two decades, the Mariners added a right-handed bat with power to their lineup with the acquisition of Hernández and addressed one of their offseason needs by finding a corner outfielder.
Hernández hit .267 with 25 home runs and 77 RBIs in 131 games last season for the Blue Jays and joined Mookie Betts as the only outfielders with at least 35 doubles and 25 homers. He’ll slot into the middle of Seattle’s batting order and could end up being a replacement in right field for Mitch Haniger, who is a free agent.
Right-handed reliever Erik Swanson and minorleague lefty Adam Macko are going to Toronto. The Blue Jays were looking to clear salary for 2023 and also needed bullpen help. Briefly: The Angels and All-Star left-hander Tyler Anderson confirmed he has signed a three-year, $39 million contract. Anderson, who spent 2020 with the Giants, is moving across Southern California as he leaves the Dodgers . ... The Phillies’ Bryce Harper will have surgery next week to repair the tear in the ulnar collateral ligament of his right elbow that forced the outfielder to spend the bulk of this season as a designated hitter . ... Former outfielder Will Venable was named associate manager by Texas manager Bruce Bochy.