NEW YORK, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Randy Johnson will not have to share the National League Cy Young Award with Curt Schilling. For the third straight year, Johnson has captured baseball's most prestigious award for a pitcher, winning by a landslide over his Arizona Diamondbacks teammate in voting announced Tuesday by the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Johnson and Schilling are baseball's most dominant pitching tandem in decades and excelled in the postseason, sharing the World Series MVP honor following the Diamondbacks' seven-game win over the New York Yankees.
Voting for the Cy Young Award was completed at the end of the regular season and Johnson clearly was the baseball writers' ace of choice, receiving 30 of 32 first-place votes and 156 points.
The other two first-place votes went to Schilling, who placed second on 29 ballots and third on another to finish second with 98 points.
It marks the third time that teammates finished 1-2 in the Cy Young voting. The others were Mike Marshall and Andy Messersmith of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1974 and Don Newcombe and Sal Maglie of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956.
The 38-year-old Johnson is the first pitcher to win the Cy Young three straight times since Greg Maddux won each year from 1992 to 1995. He is only the fourth pitcher to win the award as many as four times. Johnson won in the American League with the Seattle Mariners in 1995.
Nicknamed the "Big Unit" for his intimidating 6-10, 230-pound frame, Johnson went 21-6 with the best ERA in the NL (2.49).
His 373 strikeouts in 249 2/3 innings established a record for strikeouts per nine innings (13.4). It took Nolan Ryan 76 1/3 more innings to get his single-season record 383 strikeouts for the California Angels in 1973.
Johnson went 16-2 with a 2.21 ERA in his final 24 appearances to help the Diamondbacks win the NL West title.
Schilling was just as important to Arizona's cause, posting a 22-6 record with a 2.98 ERA. He led all of baseball with 256 innings and struck out 293.
After Arizona losses, Schilling was 13-1 with a 1.72 ERA.
Matt Morris of the St. Lous Cardinals, who tied Schilling for the league lead with 22 wins, finished third with one-second place vote and 28 thirds for 31 points.
Morris continued his remarkable comeback from "Tommy John" surgery and was 22-8 with a 3.16 ERA. He became the first St. Louis pitcher to win 22 games since Hall of Famer Bob Gibson won 23 in 1970.
Jon Lieber, who went 20-6 for the Chicago Cubs, was fourth with two third-place votes and Houston Astros rookie Roy Oswalt received a third-place vote.
The voting members of the BBWAA were asked to list three players on their ballots in order of preference. Points were awarded on a 5-3-1 basis for votes from first through third.
