Buchholz has been a dominant force for the Boston Red Sox this season, going 9-0 with a 1.71 ERA. His nine wins are the most in the AL, his 1.71 ERA is the best in the AL, and both his strikeout and WHIP numbers have been excellent. Buchholz has always had the type of nasty stuff to be an ace in the MLB, but this is the year he has finally put it altogether and the results have been devastating for opposing hitters. There is still quite a ways to go, but if Buchholz continues to put up such incredible numbers then there is an excellent chance he will become the first Red Sox pitcher to win the AL Cy Young since Pedro Martinez in 2000.
Yu Darvish is perhaps the pitcher with the best chance to challenge Buchholz for Cy Young honors this season, as he leads the AL in strikeouts with 118 through 88.1 innings of work and has been absolutely lights out for the Texas Rangers this season. Darvish is 7-2 with a 2.75 ERA, and it isn’t realistic to think that if he keeps up his K/9 while winning games, his ERA could cross with Buchholz at some point in the year, which is something the pay per head bookie service users are fully aware of. Darvish has some solid offensive firepower behind him in Texas, and could make history as the first Rangers’ pitcher ever to win the AL Cy Young award.
There will also be competition from another pair of arms within the AL West, with Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma of the Seattle Mariners both in the running at this point. Hernandez is the bigger name as a former Cy Young award winner, and is 7-4 with a 2.49 ERA and 102 strikeouts. King Felix is just three years removed from his Cy Young season, but he still doesn’t even have the best numbers on his own team. Those numbers belong to Iwakuma, who is 7-1 with a 1.79 ERA. While Iwakuma doesn’t have the same strikeout numbers as Hernandez, his ERA and WHIP are both lower and if he continues to find ways to win games he could challenge the top AL Cy Young award contenders to this point in Buchholz and Darvich. Honorable mention goes to Matt Moore of the Tampa Bay Rays, who is 8-2 but has struggled with his ERA these last two games, and Max Scherzer of the Detroit Tigers, who is tied for the AL-lead with nine wins and is among the strikeout leaders with 106 through 90.1 innings pitched. Find out more info by checking out some of the best sports betting sites.
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