If this was indeed Freddy Peralta’s final season with the Milwaukee Brewers, he departed having turned in his finest effort as a professional.
The right-hander on Wednesday, Nov. 12 finished fifth in balloting for the National League Cy Young Award, which was won unanimously by Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes (30 first-place votes, 210 points).
Peralta, 29, earned four third-place votes, 11 fourth-place votes and 10 fifth-place votes for a total of 40 points.
Philadelphia Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sánchez finished second with 120 points and San Francisco Giants right-hander Logan Webb finished third with 72 points.
Corbin Burnes is the last Brewers pitcher to finish in the top 10 in balloting; he notched an eighth-place finish with 13 points in 2023.
Peralta finished with an NL-best 17 victories (17-6 overall) as well as career bests in starts with 33, ERA at 2.70 and innings with 176 ⅔ while becoming just the third Milwaukee pitcher to record three 200-strikeout seasons (204). Peralta was also an NL all-star for the second time.
He also threw 30 consecutive scoreless innings from Aug. 5-Sept. 10, the second-longest streak in club history behind Teddy Higuera’s 32 in 1987. Peralta went 4-0 with a 0.32 ERA in five starts in August and was named the NL’s pitcher of the month.
One of three minor-league pitchers acquired from the Seattle Mariners in a December, 2015 trade of Adam Lind, Peralta went on to make his major-league debut for the Brewers in 2018 and 211 appearances overall with 162 starts.
In those eight seasons, Peralta went 70-42 with a 3.59 ERA, WHIP of 1.13 and 1,153 strikeouts in 931 innings (11.1 per nine). He ranks third on the franchise’s all-time strikeouts list behind only Yovani Gallardo (1,226) and Ben Sheets (1,206).
Peralta will earn a $50,000 bonus for his fifth-place finish per the terms of the contract extension he signed with Milwaukee in February of 2020.
