CY YOUNG AWARD WINNERS

The baseball writers have voted Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw Cy Young award winners for their respected leagues. For those of you who do not follow baseball, the Cy Young goes out to the best pitcher in each league.

Any casual baseball fan would know that Justin Verlander was a lock to win the award. To be blunt, no other pitcher in the American League even had a chance. Verlander is the first pitcher in years to win the pitcher triple crown. The triple crown for pitchers is when they lead the league in wins, earned run average, strikeouts. In 34 starts, Verlander posted a 2.40 era, with 23 wins, and 250 strike outs in a whopping 251 innings. No other pitcher came even close to putting up the numbers that Verlander did this season as he was the unanimous winner for the award. All hitters, whether they were Adrian Gonzalez or Jason Varitek, batted a combined .192 against him ( Meaning under 2 hits for every 10 at bats against him). Jared Weaver, who really had no chance at winning the award behind Verlander, deserves recognition for a spectacular season. Through 235 innings pitched, Weaver won 18 games and had an ERA of 2.41. Although his numbers were already Cy Young worthy, Weaver really struggled down the stretch for the Angels. For most of the season, Weaver's ERA hovered below 2.00, but was overworked in hopes of the Angel playoff push, but struggled in the last month of the season.

Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers won the award for the National League. While leading the league with a 2.28 ERA and being tied for the lead in wins with 21, Kershaw was simply magnificant. While playing for a team that had no hopes for the playoffs, Kershaws 21 wins are even more impressive as he personally won close to 1/3 of the all the team wins. At 23 years old, Kershaw becomes one of the youngest pitchers in history to win the award. Many believe that this is the first of many future awards for Clayton ( and why wouldn't they?). With 248 strikeouts, Kershaw also won the triple crown for his league. Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee were also among the finalists for the award as they are year in and year out. However, this year had a few suprisin finalists, Ian Kennedy and Ryan Vogelsong. Kennedy broke out in a huge way this season for Arizona, posting a 2.88 ERA with 21 wins. Vogelsong, who seemingly came out of nowhere, went 13-7 with a 2.71 ERA.