Corbin Burnes Named 2021 NL Cy Young Award Winner

NEW YORK – Former Saint Mary's pitcher Corbin Burnes has been named the 2021 National League Cy Young Award Winner by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
 
Burnes led the league in Earned Run Average, strikeouts per nine innings, ERA-plus, strikeout-to-walk ratio, and home runs allowed per nine innings pitched in 2021. The former 2016 fourth-round draft pick of the Brewers finished with a 2.43 ERA while going 11-5 in 167 innings pitched, striking out 234 batters to just 34 walks in 28 starts.
 
The former Gael started the season setting the record for batters struck out without allowing a walk at 58. He also struck out 10 straight batters on August 11 against the Chicago Cubs. In the pandemic-truncated 2020 season, he struck out 88 in 59.2 innings while posting a 2.11 earned run average, finishing sixth in the Cy Young voting.
 
This year's Cy Young voting was the closest margin of victory in National League Cy Young voting history, with Burnes receiving 12 first-place votes and 14 second-place votes. The second-place votes proved to be the difference in the 10-point margin between Burnes and second-place finisher Zach Wheeler of the Phillies who also received 12 first-place votes.
 
Burnes got better every year as a member of the SMC Baseball Team, and finished his Gaels career going 9-2 overall with a 2.48 ERA as a junior, after going 7-5 with a 3.74 ERA as a sophomore, and 0-4 with a 6.18 ERA as a freshman.
 
The Bakersfield, Calif. native followed a similar pattern in his professional career in the minors and big leagues. After debuting as a reliever in 2018 and going 7-0 with a 2.61 ERA, Burnes gave up home runs at a high clip in 2019 as a starter and reliever, and was sent back to AAA for fine tuning. But over the past two seasons he has been the stingiest starter in the big leagues in home runs allowed, at a time when MLB has seen long balls hit at historical rates.
 
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