Paul Skenes has pitched himself into the National League Cy Young Award race with a historic start to his career.
After tossing seven no-hit innings against the Brewers on Thursday, the flame-throwing phenom is +1200, the third-best odds in the Senior Circuit, at FanDuel Sportsbook to win the award.
He trails only Zack Wheeler and Chris Sale, who are both +135 on the odds board at FanDuel.
Since debuting exactly two months ago May 11, Skenes, 22, has posted a dominant 1.90 ERA with 89 strikeouts and just 13 walks over 66 ⅓ innings.
Batters are slashing a putrid .202/.251/.319 against him, vaulting him into conversations for the best pitcher in baseball after just 11 career starts.
His big league performance thus far is putting him into some historic territory, too.
With yet another dominant outing Thursday, Skenes joined Nolan Ryan as the only two pitchers to have multiple starts of six or more innings with 11 or more strikeouts and no hits allowed in the same season, per MLB.com.
His 89 strikeouts are the fifth-most in MLB history through 11 career games, trailing only Kerry Wood, Hideo Nomo, Herb Score and José DeLeón.
Despite pitching the first month of the season in the minors, oddsmakers are giving Skenes an outside shot (+560, FanDuel) at becoming just the 19th pitcher since 1900 to strike out 200 batters in a season.
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While he’s still a bit of a long shot for the Cy Young, Skenes has all but wrapped up the NL Rookie of the Year honor in the eyes of oddsmakers.
He is -550 with half a season to go to win the award — no other player is better than +350.
Already an All-Star, Skenes is looking to make even more history during the Midsummer Classic by potentially becoming just the fifth rookie pitcher to start the game, joining Nomo (1995), Fernando Valenzuela (1981), Mark Fidrych (1976) and Dave Stenhouse (1962), according to MLB.com.