UNC Baseball: Zac Gallen finishes third in Cy Young Race

Former UNC Baseball pitcher Zac Gallen’s 2023 season was capped off Wednesday evening with the announcement of the Cy Young voting.

Last Tuesday, former UNC Baseball pitcher Zac Gallen was announced as a finalist for the National League Cy Young Award.

With that announcement, it was guaranteed the Gallen would then hold the highest finish in the Cy Young race ever by a former Tar Heel.

However, at the time, we didn’t know where exactly he would finish in the voting or if he would win the award for the 2023 Major League Baseball Season. Gallen’s impressive season included a 17-9 win/loss record, good for second in the major leagues, and a 3.47 earned runs average, which was 16th in the league. He also finished sixth in strikeouts with 220 on the season across 210 innings pitched during the regular season.

Through all of that, it was officially announced on Wednesday that Gallen finished third in the National League Cy Young voting behind Logan Webb from the San Franciso Giants and winner Blake Snell from the San Diego Padres.

Snell received 28 of 30 first-place votes, while Gallen and Webb each received one vote each. Gallen’s impressive performance this season helped propel the Arizona Diamondbacks from a wild-card contender all the way to the World Series for the first time since 2001.

The clock finally struck midnight, though, for the Diamondbacks, as they met the red-hot Texas Rangers in the Fall Classic, losing the series 4-1.

Gallen capped off the best season of his five-year career in 2023 and will be looking to continue to build on that in 2024 and get back to the World Series next year.

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