There is an ace who has 4 wins and 0 losses with an ERA of 0.79 and 36 strikeouts in 34 innings. However, it is difficult to say that he is the most advanced in the Cy Young race.
Gerrit Cole (New York Yankees) gave up no runs with 4 hits, 4 strikeouts and 2 walks in 5⅔ innings in a home game against the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2023 Major League Baseball held at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York, USA on the 23rd (Korean time). He lost a single point of support from the lineup before a no-decision.
Surprisingly, the pitching and results on this day are the worst for Cole this season. That’s why this season’s results are overwhelming. On the 31st of last month, he won the 먹튀검증opening match against the San Francisco Giants with 6 innings, 3 hits, 11 strikeouts, 2 walks and no runs, and on the 6th, he won his 2nd win of the season against the Philadelphia Phillies with 3 hits, 8 strikeouts, 3 walks and 1 run in 6⅓ innings against the Philadelphia Phillies. And on the 12th, the Cleveland Guardians won their 3rd season with 5 hits, 3 strikeouts, 2 walks and 2 runs in 7 innings.
The highlight was against the Minnesota Twins on the 17th. He won a complete shutout with 2 hits, 10 strikeouts, 1 walk and no run in 9 innings. And on this day, for the first time, he failed to hunt for a multiplier because he did not receive beast support. He failed to make a quality start for the first time in the season.
Cole hit a whopping 33 homers last year, leading the American League with most home runs. However, he has not hit a single home run all season. However, there is no other way for Cole to lead the American League individual division other than the most innings. He ranks second in earned run average, third in WHIP (0.79), and second in batting average (0.155). Strikeouts are 4th. It doesn’t mean much as the season is still less than a month away, but at this point, it’s hard to say that Cole is the most advanced in the Cy Young race.
How could this be? This is because the performance of ‘pitcher’ Shohei Ohtani (LA Angels) is ‘monster mode’. Ohtani has 3 wins in 5 games this season, an average ERA of 0.64, 38 strikeouts in 28 innings, a WHIP of 0.82, and a hit rate of 0.092. After debuting in 2018, he is poised to hit a pitching career high.
It ranks first in the major leagues in ERA and batting average, second in strikeouts in the American League, and fifth in WHIP in the American League. Only the most innings is 8th in the American League. If he only had fewer walks (15 walks + 3 walks), which he pointed out as a problem at the beginning of the season, his WHIP improved and he could handle more innings.
In other words, Ohtani calculates that if this problem is solved, the first Cy Young in his life is possible. Prior to the start of this season, the American media predicted that Ohtani would win the Cy Young Award and MVP at the same time. Cole is a representative player trying to stop this move.
Cole is in the middle of a nine-year, $324 million (approximately 431.6 billion won) contract with the Yankees. A superstar to this extent, he has yet to receive a single Cy Young Award since his debut. 2021, when he recorded 16 wins, 8 losses and an ERA of 3.23 in 30 games, was his biggest opportunity, but he had to be content with second place in the Cy Young vote. At the time, the Cy Young Award was received by Seattle Mariners Robbie Ray (then Toronto Blue Jays).
In the American League, in addition to Ohtani and Cole, Sean McClanahan (Tampa Bay Rays, 4 wins, 1.86 ERA), Sonny Gray (Minnesota Twins, 4 games, 2 wins, 0.82 ERA), Luis Castillo (Seattle Mariners, 5 games, 2 wins, ERA) 1.52) and Dylan Seaz (Chicago White Sox, 2 wins in 5 games, 2.73 ERA) have good start to the season. A potential Cy Young race candidate.