By Anthony Caruso III | Publisher
The Boston Red Sox dumped pitcher Chris Sale in a trade to the Atlanta Braves last offseason. The Red Sox brass may have thought Sale’s career was over.
The Braves thought otherwise as they acquired the longtime pitcher for basically nothing. And it worked out for them.
Sale won the National League Cy Young Award on Wednesday night. He is the fifth player, who is age 35 or older, to win their first Cy Young Award.
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“It’s special. It is. And I appreciate it,” Sale said on a Zoom call following the announcement. “I appreciate it for obviously the accolade and the trophy and the recognition part of it, but I think I appreciate it more because it reminds me of the people that helped me get here. This wasn’t some easy (journey). If I would’ve won it years ago, maybe, but this wasn’t an easy way to get to winning this trophy for the first time or this award. As soon as it happened, I’m thinking about people and teammates and coaches and trainers and family. It’s special to me because of all the hard work that other people put in to get me here.”
He received 198 points in the voting. Sale received 26 first-place votes.
He also received four second-place votes.
“I definitely feel like I appreciate it more now than had I won it during that stretch I had from ‘12 to ‘18,” Sale said, referencing his string of years finishing in the top six in voting for the award but never winning. “You learn a lot about yourself. I think when things get taken away and you get them back, you learn to appreciate it a little bit more and you treat it a little bit differently. I feel like I definitely did that this year, was able to kind of slow things down and appreciate baseball, and where I was at, and what I was doing, who I was doing it with.”
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Zach Wheeler was second. Their ace received 130 points.
Wheeler received four first-place votes. He also received 25 second-place votes.
One individual gave Wheeler a fourth-place vote.
Sale and Wheeler were the only pitchers to receive 100 or more points.
Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes — who had just won the National League Rookie of the Year Award — was third with 53 points. He received one second-place vote.
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Then, he received three third-place votes. The phenom also received three fourth-place votes.
And finally, he received four fifth-place votes.
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