4 Padres Receive Cy Young Votes in First Expert Poll

MLB.com polled its staff experts to come up with the Cy Young Award favorites in each league. The results were published Tuesday.

The names at the top of the list — Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the National League, reigning winner Tarik Skubal in the American League — were no surprise.

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Yamamoto collected 22 of 37 possible first-place votes in the National League Award, making him the runaway favorite in the first poll of the season. At the bottom of the list were four San Diego Padres pitchers, a small indication of the group effort that has defined the Padres' strong start.

The four vote-getters: Michael King (including one first-place vote), Nick Pivetta, Dylan Cease, and Robert Suarez.

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Padres starters rank third in the NL in earned-run average (3.50) and have authored two of the three complete-game shutouts in the league thus far. Their relievers have a tied-for-league-leading 16 saves in 20 chances, an NL-leading 80 percent conversion rate. Suarez (15 for 16) has done the bulk of the heavy lifting in that department.

King is 4-1 with a 2.32 ERA, a strong follow-up to his first full season in San Diego. Last year, King was the surprise ace of the staff, going 13-9 with a 2.95 ERA in 31 games (30 starts).

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Acquired from the New York Yankees in the Juan Soto blockbuster, King is showing no worse for the wear of his first full major league season as a starting pitcher. He has one of the two complete-game shutouts by a Padres pitcher this season (April 13 vs. Colorado); Stephen Kolek (May 10 in Colorado) has the other.

Perhaps the most surprising performance by an individual Padres pitcher this season belongs to Pivetta. Signed to a four-year, $55 million contract after rejecting the Boston Red Sox's qualifying offer last November, Pivetta is 5-2 with a 3.05 ERA in his first eight starts.

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Since leaving Boston, Pivetta has all but ditched a slider that barely fooled anyone last season, while getting more out of his four-seamer (.173 opponents' batting average, 28.7 whiff percentage) and sweeper (.154; 43.5) without adding velocity to either pitch.

Cease's 1-2 record and 4.60 ERA don't jump out from the page. They do not align with his expected stats (3.69, .238 opponents' average) across his first nine starts, and his 32.8 percent whiff rate remains elite.

In his penultimate start, Cease took a no-hitter into the seventh inning against the New York Yankees. The early Cy vote could be a reflection of recency bias, the expectations that come with his underlying stats, or both.

For more Padres news, head over to Padres on SI.