By EFE
Nov 29, 2023, 9:40 PM EST
The Dominican Félix Bautista and the American Devin Williams were announced this Wednesday as the winners of the Reliever of the Year award for the 2023 Major League season.
The award recognizes the best relief pitcher in the American League and National League.
Bautista, closer for the Baltimore Orioles, earned his first distinction of this type, when he was chosen in the American League.
The Dominican right-hander, who could not play the last stage of the season due to undergoing surgery on the elbow of his throwing arm, was essential for the Orioles to achieve first place in the Eastern Division and advance to the postseason. for the first time since 2014.
Bautista’s absence had a lot of weight for the Orioles in the postseason, as they had to put more load on their other pieces in their relief corps.
Bautista, who now owns the award that bears the name of Panamanian Mariano Rivera, managed to rescue 33 games, leaving a percentage of earned runs allowed of 1.48, with 110 strikeouts in 61 innings, thus reaching an average of 16.2 strikeouts per nine episodes on the mound.
For his part, Williams had the responsibility of closing games for the Milwaukee Brewers, whom he helped reach the postseason.
The winner of the Trevor Hoffman Award for National League Reliever of the Year, he had 36 saves and struck out 87 batters in 58.2 innings in the 61 games he worked, for an ERA of 1.53.
For Williams, this is his second distinction as the best reliever in the National League, along with the one obtained in the 2020 campaign.
The quality shown by Williams was decisive for the Brewers to decide to get rid of Josh Hader to give him the closer position.