Paul Skenes Wins NL Cy Young Award; Tarik Skubal Goes Back-to-Back in AL

For the second time in MLB history, the two pitchers who started the All-Star Game also won that season’s Cy Young Awards.

Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers pitches against the Mariners during the American League Division Series at T-Mobile Park in Seattle on Oct. 10, 2025. Steph Chambers/Getty Images

At the 2025 MLB All-Star Game, Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers and Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates faced off as the Midsummer Classic’s starting pitchers. Roughly four months later, the two aces achieved something even grander: They were named the Cy Young Award winners in their respective leagues.

That makes two straight American League Cy Youngs for Skubal, and it’s the first NL award for Skenes, who just completed his second MLB season. Both made history with the honors as Skubal becomes just the 12th pitcher in MLB history—and first AL pitcher since Pedro Martinez in 1999-2000—to win back-to-back Cy Young Awards. As for Skenes, 23, he becomes the fifth-youngest winner of the award and is also the fifth player to win it within his first two MLB seasons. No rookie has ever won the Cy Young.

After achieving the Pitching Triple Crown in 2024 en route to his first Cy Young, Skubal had an even better 2025 MLB season. His 2.21 ERA led the league, as did his 6.5 WAR and 187 ERA+. He allowed just a .559 OPS, which was also tops in the AL, as was his strikeout percentage of 32.2 percent.

During a 16-game stretch from April 8 to July 6, Skubal went 8-0 while Detroit went 14-2. He had a microscopic 1.62 ERA during this stretch with twice as many strikeouts (138) as hits allowed (68).

Unlike Skenes, who was the first overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft and starred at a powerhouse program in LSU, Skubal was not highly regarded as an amateur. He was originally a 29th-round pick in 2017 out of Seattle University, the only Division I school to offer him a scholarship.

He then had a rocky beginning to his MLB career and had a losing career record entering his first Cy Young season in 2024. With the path that he took to become a two-time Cy Young winner, Skubal offered a message to others who could be similarly overlooked.

“It doesn’t matter where you come from,” Skubal told MLB Network. “I had one offer out of high school [in Arizona], and it’s not a Power 5 school by any means but look at me now. So I think that’s the beauty of the game of baseball. It doesn’t matter if you’re good at 12 or good at 24 or 25. There’s a ton of stuff to happen, and just take your career day by day and see how good you can be.”

Skubal received 26 of the 30 first-place votes, with Garrett Crochet of the Boston Red Sox, who led the AL with 255 strikeouts, receiving the other four. Hunter Brown of the Houston Astros finished third.

As for Skenes, he placed third in Cy Young voting as a rookie in 2024, when he had a 1.96 ERA, then posted an NL-leading 1.97 ERA in 2025. He also led the Senior Circuit in WHIP and allowed home runs at the lowest rate. His record of 10-10 doesn’t do his season justice as much of that can be blamed on the Pirates’ struggles at the plate.

Pittsburgh ranked dead last in the majors in runs per game, home runs, slugging percentage, and OPS. In 18 of his 32 starts, Skenes allowed either zero or one earned run, yet he had just seven victories over those starts. Outside of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Skenes’ 10 victories are tied for the fewest for a starting Cy Young-winning pitcher in history—Jacob deGrom also had 10 wins when he won in 2018 as a New York Met.

Despite the lack of run support, Skenes credited his teammates with helping him achieve the honor.

“It truly is a team effort with the coaches that we had and the players,” Skenes told MLB Network. “It’s pitchers making each other better, our catcher-pitching relationship, coaches, the organization putting you in good spots to succeed. I couldn’t have done it by myself and I’m super grateful that I’ve had the infrastructure around me and the people around me to succeed.”

Skenes was a unanimous winner, just as Skubal was with his first award win in 2024. Cristopher Sanchez of the Philadelphia Phillies, who led the NL in WAR, was the runner-up and received all 30 second-place votes. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who is coming off winning the World Series MVP award, finished third in National League Cy Young voting.

Skenes’ victory is the third for the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise and first since Doug Drabek in 1990. Skubal’s win is the seventh for the Tigers, with only the Dodgers (12) and Braves (eight) having more.

This is only the second time—after Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens in 2001—that both starting pitchers from that year’s MLB All-Star Game went on to win the Cy Young Award.