By Matt Mueller Culture Editor Published Nov 17, 2021 at 8:16 PM

The Brewers season may have ended over a month ago, but the team is still adding highlights to its impressive 2021 run as Major League Baseball announced starting pitcher Corbin Burnes won the 2021 National League Cy Young award on Wednesday night.

Burnes is just the third Brewers pitcher to win the award after Rollie Fingers and Pete Vuckovich earned the honor in back-to-back years in 1981 and 1982. 

It was a very close race between Burnes and Philadelphia Phillies star hurler Zack Wheeler – to say nothing of the third finalist, previous three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer from the high-profile Los Angeles Dodgers. But while Burnes and Wheeler both scored 12 first-place votes, Burnes earned five more second-place votes, landing him with ten more points than Wheeler in the end. (For a full voting breakdown, check out this piece from the Baseball Writers' Association of America.)

Burnes posted a more-than-worthy resume for the award, putting up the best ERA (2.43) and strikeouts per nine innings (12.6) in the National League as well as the fifth most strikeouts while giving up just seven home runs on the season. In the process, the Brewers flamethrower not only set the MLB record for the most strikeouts in a row without a walk (58) but also threw most of the team's first no-hitter since 1987.

The accomplishment is even more impressive considering where Burnes was just two seasons ago, tossing a 8.82 ERA while struggling to find his pitch and his place on the Brewers. It's an understatement to say he's come a long way since then. 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled winter sports season and break from baseball – but stay tuned to OnMilwaukee for more Brewers updates when Burnes and the rest of the team take the field again in 2022. 

Matt Mueller Culture Editor

As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.

When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.