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Today in Royals History: A Cy Young tandem

April 14, 1990.

This Cy Young award is not being held by Saberhagen or Davis.
This Cy Young award is not being held by Saberhagen or Davis.
Jeff Gross

In a 3-1 win against the Toronto Blue Jays, Royals newcomer Mark Davis pitched a one-two-three ninth inning to earn his second save of the season. Not especially notable. What made his save worth mentioning was it came in support of a Bret Saberhagen victory.

Pitching IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF Pit Str Ctct StS StL GB FB LD GSc IR IS WPA aLI
Bret Saberhagen, W (1-0) 7.1 6 1 1 1 5 1 2.70 28 99 75 44 15 16 12 10 5 66 0.296 1.03
Jeff Montgomery, H (2) 0.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 1 2 2 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0.125 2.47
Mark Davis, S (2) 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 3 11 7 4 1 2 0 3 0 0 0 0.069 0.92
Team Totals 9 6 1 1 1 5 1 1.00 32 112 84 49 16 19 12 14 5 66 1 0 0.490 1.11
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/13/2014.

It was the first time in major league history the reigning AL Cy Young award winner and the reigning NL Cy Young award winner figured in the same victory.

Retro covered the signing of Davis last February - along with the ensuing disaster. Something that Retro didn't cover, but I distinctly remember - was then manager John Wathan making a comment along the lines of how nice it would be to have the AL Cy Young award winner (Saberhagen) starting a game, and then being able to go to the NL Cy Young award winner (Davis) to close it out. Ahhh, the best laid plans.

Davis was out of the closer role by the end of May. This would be the only time Saberhagen and Davis would combine in a win.