Rays ace David Price edged Tigers counterpart Justin Verlander as the winner of the American League Cy Young Award in one of the closest votes in the award's history, while Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey beat out Nationals left-hander Gio Gonzalez and Dodgers southpaw Clayton Kershaw to win the National Cy Young ballot.
Price (20-5, 2.56 ERA) received 14 first-place votes and 13 second-place votes on the 28 ballots, while Verlander (17-8, 2.64) took 13 first-place votes and 13 second-place votes. Verlander led the AL in both innings (238 1/3) and strikeouts (238).
Dickey, meanwhile, earned 27 of 32 first-place votes to become the first knuckleballer ever to win the award. He went 20-6 with a 2.73 ERA while leading the National League in strikeouts (230) and innings (233 2/3) in his age 38 season. In his acceptance speech, he thanked the many knuckleballers who helped him make the transition to becoming a practitioner of the pitch, including former Red Sox knuckler Tim Wakefield.
For more on the Cy Young balloting, click here [1]. For a complete breakdown of voting for the awards, visit the Baseball Writers' Association of America website [2].
Links:
[1] http://weei.stats.com/mlb/story.asp?i=20121114183944860809308
[2] http://bbwaa.com/
[3] http://www.weei.com/weei/boston/baseball