As the 2019 MLB season heads down the home stretch, the race for the National League Cy Young Award still very much hangs in the balance.

Between the reigning 2018 NL CYA winner, the Mets’ Jacob deGrom, current NL ERA leader, Los Angeles’ Hyun-Jin Ryu, Washington’s future Hall of Famer, Max Scherzer, as well as a couple of talented also-rans, BBWAA voters will assuredly have their hands full as the end of the season draws closer.

Ryu, 32, is having an outstanding campaign for the MLB-best Dodgers. His 2.00 ERA and 1.12 walks per nine innings are best in the NL by healthy margins, and his 0.98 WHIP ranks second in the league behind Arizona’s Zack Greinke (0.95).

Ryu’s not much of strikeout threat (7.84 K/9), but the left-hander allows a reasonably low number of home runs (0.88 HR per nine; fifth-least in NL) considering the number of swings he induces on pitches in the strike zone (68.0% Z-Swing rate).

Despite an eighth-in-the-league 3.8 wins above replacement (FanGraphs), he’s a justifiable candidate, no doubt.

Scherzer, now 35, seems to be in this conversation every year since being traded back into the NL in 2015. Like clockwork — and through a lingering back injury that shelved the right-hander for nearly a month (Scherzer returned to action Thursday) — Mad Max finds himself among the game’s elite once again.

Over 21 starts (138.1 innings) this season, Scherzer owns a 2.41 ERA (tied for second in NL with Atlanta’s Mike Soroka), 2.19 FIP, 12.49 strikeouts per nine innings, and a 2.92 xFIP — all best in the league — with a glowing 1.69 walks per nine innings (second).

Taking into account the missed time or not, those numbers are incredibly hard to argue with — especially considering Scherzer is tied for the league lead in fWAR (5.8). Another worthy examinee, indeed.

Now, we come to Jacob deGrom. After a slow start (3.98 ERA on May 21), the 30-year-old righty has absolutely shone, pitching to a 1.88 ERA over 17 starts since.

That torrid stretch vaulted deGrom toward the top of the NL leaderboards in ERA (2.56, fourth), and his 2.68 FIP (second), 11.50 strikeouts per nine (second), and 5.6 fWAR (tied for first) make a very strong case for the Florida product.

DeGrom’s ascent back to the upper crust is eerily similar to the stretch of dominance we saw the three-time NL All-Star put together in his award-winning 2018 campaign (6.00 ERA after three starts, 1.58 ERA over his next 29).

With a dangerous dose of strong competition all vying for the same high-profile hardware — Ryu, Scherzer, deGrom, Soroka, and possibly Clayton Kershaw (2.76 ERA, 9.54 K/9, 1.86 BB/9, 3.8 fWAR) — the next five weeks figures to be a blast for the pitching-crazed baseball fan.