Tigers' Tarik Skubal, Braves' Chris Sale win Cy Young Awards - ESPN

Chris Sale's comeback season has ended with the expected result: He's the National League Cy Young winner, capturing his first Cy Young Award over Philadelphia's Zack Wheeler with 26 of the 30 first-place votes.

Detroit Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal, who finished 18-4 with a 2.39 ERA and 228 strikeouts, was the unanimous choice for the American League Cy Young Award, getting all 30 first-place votes.

Sale, the 35-year-old lefty for the Atlanta Braves, finished 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts — leading the National League in all three Triple Crown pitching categories (wins, ERA and strikeouts).

He joined Skubal as a Triple Crown winner — the first by pitchers in a full season since Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander did it in 2011 (Shane Bieber did it in the COVID-shortened 2020 season).

Voting for National League Cy Young Award, as selected by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (tabulated on a 7-4-3-2-1 basis):

Sale's resurgence was a blast from last decade, when he was one of the top starting pitchers in the sport. He had battled a series of injuries since 2019, including Tommy John surgery in March of 2020. From 2020 to 2023, he made just 31 starts, although 20 of those came with the Boston Red Sox last season, leading the Braves to take a chance and acquire him in an offseason trade.

«The biggest thing is health,» Sale said of his return to dominance. «I was healthy earlier in my career and I was able to sustain some success and stay out on the field. Ran into a buzzsaw over the past handful of years. Just couldn't stay healthy, couldn't stay on the field, and you're not doing anything when you're not on the field.»

He responded with a season that looked a lot like his prime years with the Chicago