Major League Baseball and the Baseball Writers Association of America announced Cleveland Indians right-hander Corey Kluber as the winner of the 2017 American League Cy Young Award on Wednesday. Red Sox lefty Chris Sale finished second in the voting and Yankees righty Luis Severino finished third.

Over on the National League side, Nationals ace Max Scherzer was named the 2017 NL Cy Young award winner.  

This is the second career Cy Young for Kluber, who won the award back in 2014. He also finished third in the voting last season. Also, this is the fourth time in the past 11 seasons an Indians pitcher has won the AL Cy Young. CC Sabathia won in 2007, Cliff Lee won in 2008, and Kluber won in 2014 and 2017.

For much of the season Sale was considered the front-runner for the Cy Young award, but he faded down the stretch while Kluber surged, which swung the vote in his favor. Here's a quick comparison of their seasons:

Sale first half: 2.75 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, 8.09 K/BB in 127 2/3 innings
Kluber second half: 2.80 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, 5.13 K/BB in 93 1/3 innings

Sale second half: 3.12 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 6.19 K/BB in 86 2/3 innings
Kluber second half: 1.79 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, 11.83 K/BB in 110 1/3 innings

Kluber led all pitchers, AL and NL, in wins (18), ERA (2.25), ERA+ (202), WHIP (0.87), K/BB ratio (7.36), and WAR (+8.0) in 2017. He was marvelous all year and especially late in the season. Kluber is the first pitcher in Indians franchise history to win multiple Cy Youngs.

Sale had an excellent season himself -- he became the first AL pitcher with 300-plus strikeouts since Pedro Martinez in 1999 -- though it wasn't enough to take home his first career Cy Young. He's finished in the top six of the voting each of the last six years, though this is the first time he's a runner-up.

Severino, meanwhile, broke out with a monster 2017 season, throwing 193 1/3 innings with a 2.98 ERA (152 ERA+) and 230 strikeouts. He's the first Yankees starter to finish with a sub-3.00 ERA since Andy Pettitte and David Cone both did it in 1997. 

As a reminder, voting for all major awards takes places after the regular season and before the postseason. These are regular season awards only. The full 2017 AL Cy Young voting results can be seen at the BBWAA's site.