Lincecum, in his second major league season, earned the Cy Young
in convincing fashion Tuesday
NEW YORK
Tim Lincecum won the National League Cy Young Award by a comfortable margin Tuesday, taking home pitching’s highest honor in his second major league season.
The slender kid with the whirling windup joined Mike McCormick (1967) as the only San Francisco Giants pitchers to win a Cy Young.
Lincecum received 23 of 32 first-place votes and 137 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamondbacks got four first-place votes and finished second with 73 points.
Listed at 5-foot-11 and 160 pounds, tiny by today’s standards for a big league pitcher, Lincecum defied detractors – and the laws of physics – by firing 97 mph fastballs past one hulking slugger after another.
The 24-year-old right-hander was 18-5 with a 2.62 ERA and a major league-best 265 strikeouts, remarkable numbers for a fourth-place team that finished 72-90.
Lincecum led the NL in winning percentage (.783), ranked second in ERA and was third with 227 innings. He made his first All-Star squad, but an illness prevented him from appearing in the July 15 game at Yankee Stadium.
New York Mets ace Johan Santana, who led the league in ERA (2.53) and innings (234 1-3), also garnered four first-place votes and came in third.
The other first-place vote went to Milwaukee lefty CC Sabathia, last year’s AL winner who was traded by Cleveland into the National League on July 7. He went 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA and seven complete games in 17 starts for the Brewers, pitching them to their first playoff berth since 1982.
Sabathia came in fifth. Brad Lidge, the star closer who had a perfect season for the World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies, was fourth.
Webb, the NL winner in 2006, was runner-up for the second consecutive season after going 22-7 with a 3.30 ERA in 226 2-3 innings.
The baby-faced Lincecum, nicknamed “Franchise,” is an aberration in almost every way. He eats junk food before starts and doesn’t ice his arm. When he was called up from the minors in May 2007, ballpark security workers in San Francisco thought he was a bat boy.
Late this season, some teammates even asked for his autograph – including veteran catcher Bengie Molina.
McCormick won in the first year the BBWAA honored a pitcher in each league. From 1956-66, only one award was presented for both leagues.
Santana, a two-time AL winner with Minnesota, received a $50,000 bonus for finishing third. Sabathia got $75,000 for coming in fifth. Webb’s second-place finish increased the buyout of his $8.5 million club option by $500,000 to $2 million.
Prepared by AP Baseball Writer Mike Fitzpatrick. AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum and AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley in San Francisco contributed to this report.
