Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani Named Cy Young Favorite Over Phillies' Cristopher Sanchez

Shohei Ohtani has continued to amaze this season, adding different ways for the baseball world to marvel at his accomplishments.

The Los Angeles Dodgers two-way superstar always finds himself in the news for something he did on the field, and it has only magnified this year. Not only is Ohtani leading the race for the National League MVP award, but his performance on the mound has him directly in the Cy Young conversation as well.

Entering the season, Ohtani had a clear goal of winning the Cy Young, and the Dodgers have been very supportive of this idea. But even they couldn't have imagined how good Ohtani would be on the mound.

For the year, Ohtani has recorded an eye-popping ERA of 0.82 over nine starts. The right-handed pitcher has thrown 55 innings so far for the Dodgers.

Due to his dominance, Ohtani has now been named as the favorite to win the NL Cy Young award over ace left-hander Cristopher of the Philadelphia Phillies. Insiders Jack Harris and Dylan Hernandez of The California Post ranked the candidates thus far, placing Ohtani at the top.

Sanchez has been incredible for the Phillies this season, posting an ERA of 1.47 over 12 starts. The left-hander has thrown 79.1 innings this year, which is the most by a pitcher this year.

The big knock on Ohtani's chance to win the Cy Young has been the lack of innings pitched compared to others like Sanchez. The Phillies ace has made three more starts than Ohtani, and this could come back to hurt Ohtani down the line.

Another pitcher mentioned against Ohtani is Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates. In comparison, Skenes has thrown 65.1 innings this year, recording an ERA of 2.89 over 12 starts.

Ohtani has been the most dominant pitcher in the game this season, at least game to game. However, voters could hold the innings issue against him.

But if the Dodgers star is able to keep his ERA low enough, it could help offset this fact. Due to the Dodgers' plethora of starting pitchers, they don't need Ohtani to take on such a heavy workload over the course of the year.

The Dodgers have also been focused on making sure that Ohtani doesn't take on too much, doing whatever they can to avoid unnecessary injury. While the team wants to help Ohtani win the Cy Young, the organizational goal of winning the World Series takes precedence.

Ohtani may see some extra rest coming his way down the line, and this could also hurt his chances to overtake someone like Sanchez or Skenes. The superstar is as competitive as they come, but the Dodgers may need to protect him from himself at some point.

But until then, Ohtani will take the mound whenever called upupon helping the Dodgers rack up wins. And if this leads to him winning the Cy Young at the end of the season, the list of his accomplishments will only grow even larger.

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