Chicago Cubs’ ace Jake Arrieta named 2015 N.L. Cy Young award winner

After Chicago Cubs skipper, Joe Maddon bested both Terry Collins and Mike Matheny for N.L. Manager of the Year, his ace right-hander, Jake Arrieta brought home his first career Cy Young award according to MLB’s official twitter handle.

It was a wonderful season for the lovable losers from the North Side of Chicago, but they’ve turned some heads over the past week by bringing home multiple regular season awards including Rookie of the Year.

Arrieta (22-6, 1.77 ERA) entered the season as Chicago’s No. 2 starter but quickly emerged as the club’s ace by picking up where he left off last season.

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In fact, he managed to record a 16-1 record over the course of his 20 starts prior to shutting out the Pittsburgh Pirates in the N.L. Wild Card game.

The 29-year-old Cy Young winner is only the fifth Chicago Cub to win this honor, the previous one being Greg Maddux who claimed it back in 1992.

Other players on this list include Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins who was the first Cub to win the Cy Young in 1971. Joining them is Bruce Sutter (1979) and Rick Sutcliffe during 1984 after he was acquired from the Cleveland Indians in exchange for Mel Hall and Joe Carter.

Arrieta surpassed Maddux this season in regards to consecutive quality starts which included a no-hitter on a Sunday evening in Los Angeles against Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke‘s Dodgers.

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Both men were also in the running and turned in fantastic campaigns of their own. When the voting ended, Arrieta picked up 17 first-places votes, seven more than Greinke and 14 ahead of Kershaw who finished third.

Making the decision to pick up both Arrieta and Pedro Strop from the Baltimore Orioles could go down as one of the greatest trades in franchise history.

With the N.L. MVP set to be announced tomorrow, two former N.L. Central rivals in the Cubs and Houston Astros, have stood out this week.

Despite A.J. Hinch missing out on Manager of the Year, slugger Carlos Correa earned himself enough first-place votes to win the American League’s Rookie of the Year.

Houston’s own Dallas Keuchel outgunned David Price, Sonny Gray, Chris Sale, and Chris Archer to win his first A.L. Cy Young award as well.

These two clubs will meet up during the second half of the 2016 season for a three-game set in Houston. Hopefully, both of these men will square off against each other as their teams make another push for the postseason.