Santana led all Major League Baseball starting pitchers with a 2.77 earned run average and 245 strikeouts. He and Cy Young runner-up Chien-Ming Wang of the New York Yankees tied for the most wins in the majors, each with 19, making Santana the first pitcher to top the major leagues in all three categories since Dwight Gooden of the New York Mets in 1985.

A 27-year-old left-hander, Santana received all 28 first- place votes for 140 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Wang was second with 51 points, while Toronto's Roy Halladay was third with 48.

Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamondbacks won the National League Cy Young Award two days ago.

Santana, who also received the AL award in 2004 as a unanimous choice, joins Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, Bret Saberhagen, Jim Palmer and Denny McLain as the only AL pitchers to win multiple Cy Young awards. The award has been given out for 51 years, with separate AL and NL winners since 1967.

The only other Twins pitchers to win the Cy Young Award were Frank Viola in 1988 and Jim Perry in 1970.