Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw and Detroit Tigers righty Max Scherzer won US baseball's Cy Young awards as the top pitchers of 2013 on Wednesday.
Kershaw won the National League Cy Young for the second time in three years while Scherzer became the second Tiger in three years to win the American League Cy Young.
Both were overwhelming choices following their outstanding 2013 seasons. Scherzer, the major league leader with 21 wins, received 28 of a possible 30 first-place votes to easily outdistance the Japanese duo of Texas Rangers right-hander Yu Darvish and Seattle ace Hisashi Iwakuma.
Having emerged as the ace of a formidable Tigers staff that also contained 2011 AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander, Scherzer enjoyed a career year to help Detroit reach the American League Championship Series for a third straight year.
He won 13 straight to open the season and finished with a 21-3 record.
Scherzer added 240 strikeouts while limiting opposing hitters to a .198 average, second to Darvish for the AL lead in both categories.
Scherzer's 203 total points were more than twice that of runner-up Darvish, who posted the highest finish by a Japanese hurler after receiving 19 second-place votes and 93 points.
Iwakuma was third with 73 points.
Kershaw didn't win as many games as Scherzer, but his was a dominant season. He captured a third straight National League Earned Run Average title with an MLB-best 1.83 mark, led the NL in strikeouts with 232 and finished with a 16-9 record for the Dodgers, who won the NL West division.
The 25-year-old played a key role in the Dodgers' second-half surge into the playoffs. In 13 outings after the All-Star break, Kershaw went 8-3 with a 1.59 ERA and struck out 93 hitters.
Kershaw joins some very select company in Dodgers history. Prior to Kershaw's win this year, only Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax had earned the honor more than once in team history.
He earned 207 of a possible 210 points in his landside victory. St. Louis' Adam Wainwright received the other first-place vote and accumulated 86 points, 24 more than Miami's Jose Fernandez, the 2013 National League Rookie of the Year.
Source: DSG
