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Major League Baseball announced its Cy Young Award winners on Wednesday night. The Detroit Tigers were well-represented, but in sort of a backwards fashion.
Both victors, Rick Porcello in the American League, and Max Scherzer in the NL, were firing bullets for the Tigers as recently as 2014. They won a combined 33 games for first-place Detroit that season.
Then Porcello was dealt to Boston, Scherzer chased monster bucks in D.C., and a couple of summers later, both men are at the peak of the pitching profession.
(We wrote about this possibility a couple of months ago)
The 27-year-old Porcello finally put the full arsenal on display this year, leading all of baseball with 22 victories, including a near-flawless 13 and 1 home record. His 223 innings pitched were also a career high.
The voting for the AL award might make some Tiger fans snarl. Porcello received just eight 1st-place votes, while Verlander collected a league-leading 14. But in an odd twist, Porcello was listed 18 times for 2nd-place, Verlander just twice. And while Porcello got Top-3 status on 28 of the 30 ballots, Verlander finished in the money only 21 times. In fact, two ballots left Verlander off completely (voters list their top five pitchers): Bill Chastain of MLB.com and Fred Goodall of the AP, both from Tampa. Apparently the Sunshine State was not fond of JV in 2016.
Scherzer grabbed Cy Young honors for the second time in his career, winning 20 games and smashing the rest of the league with 284 strikeouts (Justin Verlander was 2nd, a healthy 30 Ks behind). He first won the award as a Tiger back in 2013.
The reaction of Porcello upon finding out he had won was unusually refreshing. Whereas most athletes nowadays meet such awards with a series of clichés, Porcello was genuinely overcome by the moment. His family and friends collectively bear-hugged him on live TV, and it took him a minute to fight back the tears in order to conduct his acceptance interview.
While the Tigers do have a bright future on the hill with Verlander, Rookie of the Year Michael Fulmer, as well as fellow youngsters Daniel Norris and Matt Boyd, it still stings a touch to see two former players collecting major hardware so soon after skipping town. Brad Ausmus’ injury-riddled staff struggled for large parts of the year, and you can safely assume that he would have welcomed the chance to hand the ball to Ricky P. and Max twice a week.
The Tigers have had four Cy Young Winners in their franchise history. Denny McClain in 1968 and ’69 (shared with Mike Cuellar), Willie Hernandez in 1984, Verlander in 2011, and the aforementioned Scherzer victory in 2013.
