Nationals Ace MacKenzie Gore Bolstered Cy Young Case by Blanking Potent Cubs Lineup

The Washington Nationals have defied both pundit expectations and preseason predictive models to hover around the .500 mark as summer nears.

With a 29-32 record, this young, scrappy team is hovering around the National League Wild Card race and owns a better record than the Atlanta Braves -- a bona fide preseason World Series contender.

The contributions of young star hitters like James Wood and CJ Abrams have helped, but perhaps no player is more responsible for the Nationals' breakout than ace MacKenzie Gore.

He has taken the leap from good to elite, becoming the anchor of a rotation that had its fair share of question marks heading into the year.

Nationals Ace MacKenzie Gore Is Now a True Cy Young Contender

On Wednesday night, Washington scored a significant win over the Chicago Cubs, beating arguably the NL's top team, 2-0, proving they can hang with the very best.

Veteran Amed Rosario hit a key go-ahead home run to break up Matthew Boyd's shutout late, but Gore's seven shutout innings were by far the biggest factor in the win.

The lefty worked around three hits and a walk while striking out seven for his third outing of the season without allowing an earned run -- his such outing second in a row.

Gore has now worked his way into the very top of the conversation for the National League Cy Young Award, alongside notable other contenders like San Francisco Giants star Logan Webb, Pittsburgh Pirates phenom Paul Skenes, Los Angeles Dodgers sensation Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Philadelphia Phillies consistent ace Zack Wheeler.

The North Carolina native leads all NL hurlers in strikeouts per nine innings by a wide margin, with only Chris Sale (11.73) within two strikeouts of his 12.90 mark.

His xFIP of 2.52 is bested only by that of Webb (2.31) and his 11.6% home run to fly ball ratio suggests that he's been somewhat unlucky and has room for improvement in the run prevention department.

Gore's record is just 3-5, but that's largely due to poor run support and bullpen performance in some of his earlier starts.

Fortunately, the baseball world is past the days where a subpar win-loss record is held against dominant starters like Gore in Cy Young consideration.

The Nationals did as well as they possibly could with the trade of Juan Soto to the San Diego Padres, who chose Gore with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2017 MLB draft.

Now eight years after he was selected and three seasons after he was sent to Washington, Gore is not just the ace he was projected to be; he's one of the very best pitchers in the game.

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