Fastball

Chris Sale of Atlanta Braves Makes Insane Baseball History with First Cy Young Win

The Atlanta Braves pitcher is the epitome of perseverance at this point in his career.

Brady Farkas

Atlanta Braves pitcher Chris Sale against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on July 9.
Atlanta Braves pitcher Chris Sale against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on July 9. / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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Congratulations are in order for Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Chris Sale, who captured an historic National League Cy Young Award victory on Wednesday night.

Per Sarah Langs of MLB.com:

Chris Sale is the first pitcher to:

finish top-5 in Cy Young voting in 5+ straight years
then finish outside top 5 (or no votes at all) in 5+ straight yrs immediately after

AND THEN finish top-5 again after

AND HE WON!

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. baseball is the best

@EliasSports

Sale beat out Zack Wheeler (Philadelphia Phillies) and Paul Skenes (Pittsburgh Pirates) for the Cy Young. Tarik Skubal won the American League version of the award.

In his 14th season in the majors, Sale is 138-83 with a 3.04 lifetime ERA. He debuted with the White Sox in the 2010 season, staying there until 2016. He was traded to the Red Sox in 2017, helping them win the World Series in 2018 and get to the ALCS in 2021, though he only made nine starts that year.

Sale has dealt with frequent injury since 2019 and was traded to the Braves last offseason. All he did was put together the most dominant season in the National League, going 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA. He also struck out a National League-best 225 batters and made the All-Star team.

Sale's season was all the more impressive considering he helped anchor the Braves rotation once Spencer Strider was lost for the season to Tommy John surgery.

Despite injuries to Strider, Ronald Acuna Jr., Austin Riley and Ozzie Albies at various points of the year, the Braves made the playoffs. They earned a wild card berth and were eliminated in the wild card round.

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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