It was thought the American League Cy Young vote would be tight, with Zack Greinke and three 19-game winners in the mix, but the National League count proved to be a much closer one.

With 10 points separating the top three vote-getters, Giants ace Tim Lincecum repeated as the NL winner in one of the tightest races between three pitchers in the history of the award. The San Francisco right-hander finished second to the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright in first-place votes, but in the final tally, Lincecum, with 100 points, won Cy Young honors over both St. Louis right-hander Chris Carpenter (94 points) and teammate Wainwright (90).

With a 15-7 record and 2.48 ERA, Lincecum posted the smallest win total ever by a Cy Young Award winner, and both Wainwright and Carpenter won more games in 2009. The previous low mark for a Cy Young recipient was 16 wins, a total matched by Greinke in claiming AL honors on Thursday.

There was a time when the win totals of this year’s Cy Young winners might have kept them from claiming the award. Wins were the most important number to many writers for many years.

For instance, Oakland right-hander Bob Welch claimed AL honors in 1990 after going 27-6 with a 2.95 ERA. The second-place finisher, Boston’s Roger Clemens, was 21-6 with a major league-leading 1.93 ERA that was a run better than Welch’s. Clemens also posted a markedly better WHIP (1.08 vs. 1.22), 82 more strikeouts than Welch in 10 fewer innings, and lower numbers in both opponent batting (.228 vs. 242) and opponent slugging (.306 vs. .391).

A new generation of statistics has worked its way into the consciousness of baseball fans and the writers who cover the game. It’s likely a few of them figured far more prominently in the decision-making for this year’s winners.

Let’s take a look at some of the numbers that distinguish Lincecum, Carpenter and Wainwright as the National League’s best pitchers in 2009.

Top Three Finishers in NL Cy Young Vote, 2009
(NL rank in parentheses)

. . . . . . . . . . . . .Lincecum. . . . . . Carpenter. . . . . . . Wainwright
Wins. . . . . . . . . . .15 (4t). . . . . . . . .17 (2). . . . . . . . . . .19 (1)
ERA. . . . . . . . . . .2.48 (2). . . . . . . . 2.24 (1). . . . . . . . . 2.63 (4)
WHIP. . . . . . . . . .1.05 (5). . . . . . . . 1.01 (2). . . . . . . . .1.21 (10)

Opp BA . . . . . . . .206 (2). . . . . . . . .226 (7). . . . . . . . . .244 (16)
Opp OPS . . . . . . .561 (1). . . . . . . . .581 (2). . . . . . . . . .646 (8)
HR/9 IP. . . . . . . .0.40 (3). . . . . . . . 0.33 (1). . . . . . . . . 0.66 (11)

Strikeouts. . . . . . 261 (1). . . . . . . . 144 (27). . . . . . . . . 212 (4)
K-BB Ratio . . . . . 3.84 (7). . . . . . . .3.79 (8). . . . . . . . . .3.21 (12)
Quality Starts . . . .26 (1). . . . . . . . . 22 (11t). . . . . . . . . 25 (2t)

Using this collection of stats, there’s little doubt Lincecum and Carpenter deserved to finish 1-2 in the vote. Both were deserving candidates, and it was Lincecum who came away with his second straight Cy Young Award.

The old mentality about Cy Young winners might have given the award to Wainwright, the league leader in wins with 19. Wainwright had a terrific year, easily the best in his three full seasons in the majors, but both Lincecum and Carpenter were better pitchers in 2009.

Posted by Thom Henninger at 1:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sixteen wins may not sound like a ticket to Cy Young honors, but the baseball writers got it right when they gave Kansas City ace Zack Greinke the American League award.

The 26-year-old right-hander was 16-8 for the last-place Royals, who lost 97 games and shared the AL Central cellar with Cleveland. Greinke also posted a major league-leading 2.16 ERA, despite pitching in a home park that was the majors’ fifth most-friendly venue for runs scored in 2009, according to park factors at ESPN.com.

Greinke finished second in the AL, third in the majors, with 242 strikeouts, trailing only Detroit’s Justin Verlander (269) and San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum (261). Neither league leader, however, could match Greinke’s 4.75 strikeout-walk ratio. The Royals ace walked only 51 batters in 229.1 innings, and among ERA qualifiers, he finished fourth in strikeout-walk ratio behind only Toronto’s Roy Halladay (5.94), Dan Haren of the Diamondbacks (5.87) and Atlanta’s Javier Vazquez (5.41).

As for those 16 victories, Greinke easily could have been a 20-game winner with a little more run support. In eight of his 33 starts, he allowed two or fewer runs but finished with a loss or a no-decision. Greinke gave up a total of eight runs in those eight outings, but was 0-2 with a 1.29 ERA in them.

In fact, among all ERA qualifiers in the AL, Greinke ranked fourth for the lowest run support per nine innings.

Lowest Run Support per 9 IP among AL Pitchers, 2009
(ERA qualifiers only)

Matt Garza, TB. . . . . . . . . . . . . .3.68
Jarrod Washburn, Sea-Det . . . . . 3.94
Edwin Jackson, Det. . . . . . . . . . 4.04
Zack Greinke, KC. . . . . . . . . . . .4.20
James Shields, TB . . . . . . . . . . .4.42
Mark Buehrle, CWS . . . . . . . . . .4.43

Greinke easily won the Cy Young vote over the runnerup, Seattle’s Felix Hernandez. The 23-year-old right-hander was 19-5 with a 2.49 ERA that was second in the league only to Greinke’s mark. Hernandez posted his impressive ERA based out of Safeco Field, which ESPN.com ranked in the lower third of all major league parks for runs scored.

Like Greinke, Hernandez didn’t get the support that most of his AL peers received. The Mariners ace was ninth in the league for lowest run support, as he was given an average of 4.71 runs per nine innings, roughly a half-run more per nine than Greinke.

The hitting percentages allowed by Hernandez were ever so slightly lower than Greinke’s, but it was a matter of just a few hits. They finished 1-2 among their AL peers in both opponent batting and slugging, with Greinke posting the lowest opponent OBP in the league.

Greinke received 25 first-place votes from the writers to prevail over the league’s three 19-game winners. Hernandez garnered two first-place tallies, and Verlander, who was 19-9 (3.45) and finished a distant third in the balloting, had one. Yankees ace CC Sabathia, at 19-8 (3.37), was fourth in the vote.

Posted by Thom Henninger at 3:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in Cincinnati back in September didn’t convince you the Cincinnati Bengals are for real, maybe you’re a believer now.

On Sunday, in a flurry of field goals, the Bengals defeated the Super Bowl champions in Pittsburgh, 18-12, to sweep the season series for the first time since 1998.

That’s right: in Pittsburgh, where the Steelers were 17-3 since the start of the 2007 season before Sunday’s showdown (19-4 if you include playoffs). Pittsburgh’s loss to the Bengals was the first at home to a divisional foe since both the Bengals and Ravens beat the Steelers at Heinz Field during the 2006 campaign.

Equally remarkable is Cincinnati’s series sweep. The Bengals and Steelers have been in the same division since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970. In those 40 seasons together, Cincinnati has executed just eight sweeps. The Steelers have secured 15 sweeps, and the two teams split the other 16 two-game series. In 1982, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh met only once because of a labor dispute that shortened the schedule to nine games -- and the Steelers won that matchup.

With the win in Pittsburgh on Sunday, the Bengals improved to 4-0 on the road this season. Throw in a 14-0 shutout of the Browns in the final road game of the 2008 season, and the Bengals have won their last five contests away from Paul Brown Stadium.

It’s the first time in franchise history that the Bengals have won five straight road games. What makes the winning streak even more remarkable is Cincinnati’s 2-15 road record prior to the victory in Cleveland last December.

It’ll take that kind of extraordinary achievement and a few more surprises by the Bengals to ride their current success to their first Super Bowl appearance in 21 years. Last year’s Arizona Cardinals may provide inspiration to this year’s Bengals.

To their credit, the Bengals have shown they can beat the current champs, even in Pittsburgh, but a trip to the big game in February may mean a stop in Indianapolis and New England along the way.

Posted by Thom Henninger at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)