With only six days to go in the 2017 regular season, a case can be made the top three contenders for the NL Cy Young award all play for the Washington Nationals. Check out the league's ERA leaderboard:

Kershaw of course missed six weeks with a back injury, which is the only reason he is not heavily favored to win his fourth Cy Young in the last seven years. He's roughly 30 innings behind the other Cy Young candidates, and while you could argue he's been so dominant it makes up for the lost time, the voters have shown they prefer quality and quantity in their Cy Young winners.

Strasburg missed time with injury himself -- he's thrown fewer innings than Kershaw this season -- which cuts into his candidacy. Because of the Kershaw and Strasburg injuries, Scherzer has emerged as the Cy Young favorite at this point -- he missed a start with neck issues earlier this season, but that's all, one start -- and with only one week to go in the regular season, it's hard to see how the race could change in a meaningful way with each candidate only having one start remaining.

Let's go to the numbers, shall we? Here are the top five NL Cy Young candidates at this point:

Gonzalez Greinke Kershaw Scherzer Strasburg W-L 15-7 17-6 18-4 16-6 14-4 IP 191 2/3 198 1/3 171 197 1/3 167 2/3 ERA 2.68 3.18 2.21 2.55 2.68 ERA+ 166 151 189 174 165 FIP 3.91 3.25 3.01 2.92 2.73 WHIP 1.132 1.054 0.930 0.907 1.044 K 179 211 200 263 196 K/BB 2.52 4.91 6.67 4.87 4.36 FanGraphs WAR +3.2 +5.1 +4.7 +5.9 +5.3 Baseball Reference WAR +6.9 +6.0 +4.6 +7.0 +5.8

There are other pitchers worthy of NL Cy Young votes, of course. Robbie Ray of the D-Backs, Jake Arrieta of the Cubs, Jimmy Nelson of the Brewers, Jacob deGrom of the Mets, and Aaron Nola of the Phillies stand out as candidates to land a stray Cy Young vote or two. But, generally speaking, the five names in the table above are the front-runners for the award.

On a per innings basis, Kershaw has been the best pitcher in the NL this season. He's allowed by far the fewest earned runs per nine innings pitched, even after adjusting for ballpark, and his strikeout-to-walk rate is unmatched. Also, his WHIP is right in line with Scherzer's, so he's not allowing substantially more baserunners either. But, the injury happened, and voters will have a tough time voting for the guy who missed six weeks. They've shown that, historically.

Both versions of WAR agree Scherzer has been the league's most valuable pitcher, though the gap between him and the second ranked player is small. For all intents and purposes, there is no difference between +7.0 bWAR (Scherzer) and +6.9 bWAR (Gonzalez). The difference between +5.9 fWAR (Scherzer) and +5.3 fWAR (Strasburg) is tiny. Heck, Strasburg trails by only +0.6 fWAR despite throwing 29 2/3 fewer innings. WAR is not everything, of course, but it's not nothing either.

Given where things stand right now, it appears the Cy Young race will boil down this this: Scherzer has been the closest to fully healthy great pitcher in the league. He's allowed runs at a better rate than Greinke and his strikeout and walk numbers crush Gonzalez's. Had Kershaw and Strasburg stayed healthy this season, the NL Cy Young race would be much more interesting. Scherzer, as things stand, appear to be at the front of the line.