Inside The Padres

Padres Star Finishes Top 4 in NL Cy Young Voting, Right Behind Paul Skenes

Maren Angus-Coombs

Orlando Ramirez-Imagn Images
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The San Diego Padres rescued Dylan Cease from enduring one of the worst seasons Major League Baseball had ever seen when they acquired him from the Chicago White Sox during spring training.

He rewarded the National League West team with a 14-11 record and a 3.47 ERA. Cease capped off the season with a fourth-place NL Cy Young finish.

The final results were announced live on MLB Network Wednesday night with Atlanta's Chris Sale running away 26 of 30 first-place votes and 198 total points. Zack Wheeler of Philadelphia finished second with four first-place votes and Pittsburgh rookie Paul Skenes was third.

Padres starter Michael King finished seventh, three spots behind Cease.

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This season, Cease established himself as one of the top pitchers in the National League, delivering a 3.47 ERA and a 3.10 FIP over 33 starts. He racked up 224 strikeouts, just one short of Sale's league-leading total.

At one point this season, Cease had one of the best three-game stretches of any pitcher's career. He made history as the first pitcher since at least 1901 to string together three starts with 30 strikeouts while allowing no more than two hits. He also set a single-season record with six starts of at least six innings while giving up one hit or fewer.

The San Diego ace also set a new personal best with a 1.067 WHIP and added a no-hitter to his growing list of achievements. That no-no capped off an incredible three-game run where he threw 22 scoreless innings and racked up 30 strikeouts.

Cease spent five seasons with the White Sox before being traded, compiling a 43-35 record with a 3.83 ERA and 792 strikeouts across 123 starts from 2019 to 2023. He reached the 200-strikeout mark in each of his last three seasons with the team.

While Cease was viewed as the team's ace, King might have been the best.

After arriving in San Diego as part of the trade package that sent Juan Soto to New York, King went 13-9 with a 2.95 ERA. He reinvented himself as a legit big league starter in his first season with San Diego.

From 2020 to 2023, King made 19 starts for the Yankees, with nine of them coming last season. Eight of those starts were in the season's final stretch, but he was only fully unleashed in the last four.

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Maren Angus-Coombs
MAREN ANGUS-COOMBS

Maren Angus-Coombs was born in Los Angeles and raised in Nashville, Tenn. She is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and has been a sports writer since 2008. Despite being raised in the South, her sports obsession has always been in Los Angeles. She is currently a staff writer for the LA Sports Report Network.

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