Imagine if they held a National League Cy Young Award race, and Paul Skenes didn’t even crack the top five.
That’s the current reality right now in the senior circuit, though conceiving of a “Cy Young race” before the calendar hits June and no more than one third of the season has elapsed is some kind of folly.
By September, we’ll have a better idea who encountered injury problems, who got figured out the second or third time around by opposing hitters and who hit the figurative wall as the weather heats up and batters exact revenge.
At the same time, what a handful of hurlers are doing in the NL defies all logic and modern convention.
In an era in which the average starting pitcher has gone from “five-and-dive” to “four-and-no-more,” Philadelphia Phillies lefty Cristopher Sánchez is averaging nearly seven innings per start – and riding a club-record 44 ⅔-inning scoreless streak that’s nearing the neighborhood of Orel Hershiser’s all-time mark of 59.
At a time when your garden variety redlining starting pitcher lives north of 95 mph yet never sticks around to figure in the decision, Cincinnati’s Chase Burns is on pace for 21 wins and 193 innings pitched – all with an average fastball of 98.1 mph.
After nearly a decade of disbelieving what we’re seeing from Shohei Ohtani, the most talented player in baseball history has a 0.73 ERA in eight starts and more than backed up his oh-by-the-way suggestion that he’d like to win the Cy Young one day.
And rather than associating the phrase “Most fastballs above 100 mph in the pitch-tracking era” with a flash-in-the-pan reliever or a guy soon bound for his orthopedist, Milwaukee’s 6-foot-7 wunderkind, Jacob Misiorowski, is both upright and unhittable, with 100 strikeouts in 64 innings and a 1.83 ERA.
So who’s the best of the bunch? And who figures to sit atop the heap at season’s end?
Cristopher Sanchez is No. 1 on the Phillies’ all-time scoreless streak list and, right now, the best pitcher in the National League.
No. 1: Cristopher Sánchez, Phillies
Beyond dislodging Grover Cleveland Alexander from the Phillies’ record book (don’t worry kids – an iteration still lives on in your history lessons) with 44 ⅔ consecutive shutout innings, Sánchez is leading in every important precinct of this race right now.
OK, maybe not strikeouts. He’s five behind The Miz.
Yet he’s tops among qualified starters with a 1.47 ERA across a majors-leading 79 ⅓ innings pitched. It’s that latter stat that may separate him from the flamethrowers as the season goes on: Sánchez already has 30 more innings pitched than Ohtani, essentially providing four more starts worth of coverage to the pitching staff.
Sánchez features perhaps inarguably the best changeup in the game, a pitch he throws more and more each year – now at 37.8% usage – as his conviction in it grows. Opponents are batting .153 against it, with no homers and just two doubles in 141 plate appearances.
No. 2: Jacob Misiorowski, Brewers
He’s the right-handed Big Unit, with a fastball that averages 99.8 mph and a slider that comes in at 94.5 mph – all coming out of the hand of a baby-faced 6-7, 201-pounder. Perhaps Randy Johnson created more deception with his 6-10 frame and unchecked mullet flailing about, and who knows how his 98-mph fastball and 93-ish slider would rate in this modern era of pitch tracking?
Either way, hitters are equally helpless. Misiorowski is holding opponents to a .152 average, nearly 30 points nastier than No. 2 on the list, Chris Sale. And it’s not like his max velocity is driving him from games early – he’s completed at least six innings in six of 11 starts, including his past four.
Most recently, he chucked 57 of his 96 pitches at least 100 mph and dominated for seven innings in beating the Cardinals.
“That’s what I do,” he said after. “I throw hard.”
No. 3: Chase Burns, Reds
We’re not big fans of pitching WAR, especially in the smaller samples, such as one-third of a season. Nonetheless, Burns trails only Sánchez in WAR, is fourth in ERA and strikeouts and third in opponents’ batting average.
It’s all coming together awfully quick for the 23-year-old, who began the year determined to hone his changeup yet remains plenty reliant on his 98-mph heater. That’s been a mixed bag: He’s cut his home runs per nine in half compared to his 43-inning 2025 debut, though he could stand to trim his walk percentage a little more. But these are just nitpicks on what’s shaping up to be a beautiful canvas for 2026.
Need to see more: Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Harrison
You won’t see these fellows in the pitching leaders because they haven’t thrown enough: Ohtani’s 55 innings pitched leave him one shy of qualifying because the Dodgers have played 56 games; Harrison is at 51 ⅔ innings in the Brewers’ 53 games.
And while Ohtani is universally revered, Harrison has the rare opportunity to make two of his former teams look foolish.
He was the San Francisco Giants’ top pitching prospect who was perhaps rushed into a spot he wasn’t ready for, tossed into the Rafael Devers blockbuster with Boston and then discarded by the Red Sox, who have never met a hole they couldn’t make deeper by digging more.
Kyle Harrison found success in Milwaukee after the Red Sox and Giants saw fit to trade him.
Harrison, a Bay Area dude who lives in Arizona, had just reported to Fort Myers when the Sox dealt him to the Brewers, who train in Phoenix. Oh, well: The Red Sox had to pay to ship his car back home.
Ever since? He’s the Brewers next great success story, with a 1.57 ERA in 10 starts and a 4.36 strikeout-walk ratio that would rank sixth if he qualified.
Turns out the third team was the charm.
“It definitely adds a wrinkle to it, but it’s baseball, right?” Harrison told USA TODAY Sports earlier this month. “ You make relationships in the past with guys, and then you look forward to the new relationships with teammates.
“It’s all an experience. That’s the way you gotta look at it. Just keep pitching.”
And the winner will be … Paul Skenes?
Hey, he’s the champion until determined otherwise. And with all these gaudy numbers surrounding him, Skenes is simply lurking in the weeds, with what seems like a pedestrian 2.89 ERA and “only” 75 strikeouts in 65 1/3 innings.
Yet those numbers are accompanied by a 0.86 WHIP – second to Misiorowski’s 0.83 – and a 75-12 strikeout-walk margin for a league-leading 6.25 ratio – ahead of No. 2 Sanchez’s 5.94 mark. If anything, the home run ball has nipped him a little more than his elite peers, his six bombs yielded exceeded only by Burns’ eight in this group.
And let’s face it: At 6-foot-6, 260 pounds, the man is built for the long haul. He’d probably be working on a Cy Young three-peat if the Pirates called him up sooner in 2024.
Nobody can win the Cy Young in the first third of the season – but plenty can lose it. Skenes doesn’t land in either camp yet ironically represents a “dark horse” to emerge from the pack come September.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Cristopher Sanchez scoreless streak puts him up oh Ohtani NL Cy Young
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