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)

The Washington Capitals have won three of four games since scoring leader Alexander Ovechkin was sidelined with a shoulder injury at the start of the month, though Wednesday’s 5-4 victory over the New York Islanders didn’t come easy.

It certainly was one to remember. After starting goalie Jose Theodore allowed three goals on five shots in the first seven minutes, the Caps bounced back from a 3-1 deficit for a dramatic shootout win.

Backup netminder Semyon Varlamov turned in a remarkable performance, stopping 25 of 26 shots through two-plus periods and overtime. Then he allowed only one goal in 11 rounds of shootout action. The 21-year-old Russian gave up a goal to New York’s Jeff Tambellini in the first shot of the shootout, but then didn’t let a puck get past him for 10 straight rounds. The Capitals prevailed when Chris Clark beat Islanders goalie Dwayne Roloson with a wrist shot.

Repeatedly the Islanders tried to deke Varlamov and beat him low, but he kept the puck out of the net with an impressive series of leg saves. In the ninth round, Islanders wing Trent Hunter snapped a quick shot that looked like it might sneak through the five-hole, but Varlamov trapped it between his pads and then used his arms to grab the crossbar to stop from sliding into the goal with the puck.

It was the second solid shootout performance by Varlamov this season. He kept the puck out of the net for three rounds of a 3-2 shootout victory over the Nashville Predators on Oct. 17. Varlamov has now been successful on 13 of 14 shootout attempts in 2009-10, and no goalie with at least half as many shootout attempts faced can match his save percentage.

Highest Save Pct in Shootouts, 2009-10 Season
(min seven shootout attempts faced)

Goalie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ShO Att. . . . . .ShO GA. . . . . . . . Pct
Semyon Varlamov, Was. . . . . . . . . 14. . . . . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . . . . 92.9
Martin Brodeur, NJ. . . . . . . . . . . . 9. . . . . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . . . . 88.9
Marc-Andre Fleury, Pit. . . . . . . . . .8. . . . . . . . . . .1. . . . . . . . . . 87.5
Ray Emery, Phi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9. . . . . . . . . . .2. . . . . . . . . . 77.8
Three goalies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. . . . . . . . . . .2. . . . . . . . . .75.0

Posted by Thom Henninger at 2:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports was quick to wade through the Elias player rankings, which were released Monday by the players’ union and determine draft-pick compensation for free agents.

Rosenthal assembled a list of the key Type A and Type B free agents in search of work this winter, a distinction that often is the difference in whether draft picks must be relinquished when signing a player.

Teams must forfeit draft picks in order to sign Type A free agents that have been offered arbitration by their current clubs, a factor that will make some of them less attractive to potential bidders. Many teams, especially those in small and mid-sized markets, place a high value on their draft picks. And in these economic times, fewer teams are likely to participate in bidding wars for Type A free agents, as losing picks adds to the cost.

A few Type A free agents coming off less-stellar years may endure a long wait before signing a contract that probably will be less lucrative than the one that has just expired. They include Cubs reliever Kevin Gregg, Dodgers second baseman Orlando Hudson and White Sox outfielder Jermaine Dye. It’s likely, however, that their old teams won’t offer arbitration, alleviating the need for any suitor to part with a draft pick.

Many of the Type B free agents will be more attractive to clubs that are in shopping mode over the winter, as no draft picks must be surrendered to sign them. Rosenthal identifies the key Type B guys as Vladimir Guerrero, Andy Pettitte, Adrian Beltre, Mark DeRosa, Nick Johnson, Joel Pineiro, Jason Marquis and Fernando Rodney.

Other free agents who do not involve draft-pick compensation, according to Rosenthal, are World Series MVP Hideki Matsui, Pedro Feliz, Pedro Martinez, Gary Sheffield, Jarrod Washburn, Aubrey Huff, Brad Penny and Kelvim Escobar.

For now, general managers are focused on trades. That’s not solely because the free-agent marketplace has yet to open for business. It’s also a byproduct of the economic times.

Teams are busy seeing what kind of improvements they can make before the dollars start to fly. General managers are looking for less expensive options via the trade route, and a host of players may change teams before the free agents go on the market.

Posted by Thom Henninger at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Arizona Cardinals have been one of the NFL’s worst road teams for years. Since the franchise moved to Arizona in 1988, it has a 47-125 regular-season record away from home. Even during their run to the first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history last year, the Cardinals were 3-5 on the road during the regular season.

Going into the 2009 season, the Arizona-era Cardinals had never won more than two consecutive road contests. Perhaps the sign of a road turnaround came in Arizona’s 2008 divisional playoff game in Carolina last January, when the Cardinals defeated the Panthers to advance to the NFC championship game.

When the Cardinals throttled the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field on Sunday, 41-21, it was their fifth straight road win going back to that playoff victory at Carolina. They have gone 4-0 on the road this season, outscoring opponents 123-58 en route to victories over the Jaguars, Seahawks, Giants and Bears.

It’s been a long time since the Cardinals have experienced that kind of road success. They haven’t won three road games in a row since 1987, their final year in St. Louis, and the last four-game winning streak was in 1982. Neil Lomax quarterbacked those St. Louis teams.

You have to go back to 1975 to find the last time the Cardinals pulled off five consecutive wins away from home, including playoffs. That streak came in the Jim Hart era.

Now if only the 2009 Cardinals could do something about that 1-3 record at home.

Posted by Thom Henninger at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When the New York Yankees secured their 27th World Series title with a 7-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday, it was eight years to the day that Luis Gonzalez delivered a broken-bat single off Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2001 Fall Classic. That hit gave the underdog Arizona Diamondbacks the championship, but last night, the future Hall of Fame closer was on the mound for the final out of the baseball season, as the Yankees won their first World Series in nine years.

It was the fourth time Rivera had closed out a Series-clinching victory for New York. Although Rivera worked 5.1 scoreless innings against the Phillies, the rest of the Yankees pitching staff had given up 11 home runs, 23 extra-base hits and a lofty .464 slugging percentage in the six-game affair. Surprisingly, Philadelphia posted better power numbers across the board than New York, but Rivera’s teammates repeatedly came through with the big hit in key situations.

The Yankees topped the Phillies by batting .302 with runners in scoring position, driving in 21 runs in 43 at-bats. World Series MVP Hideki Matsui was 3-for-3 with four RBIs in those situations. He tied a major league record with six RBIs in Wednesday’s Game 6, delivering a two-run homer in the second inning, a two-out two-run single in the third, and a two-run double in the fifth. If it wasn’t already a perfect night for Matsui, only a two-run triple could have made it better. His Game 6 performance matched the six RBIs recorded by long-time Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson in Game 3 of the 1960 World Series.

Matsui wasn’t the only Yankee who delivered in the clutch. Jorge Posada was 3-for-7 with a team-leading five RBIs with RISP. Johnny Damon was 2-for-6 with four ribbies in those situations, though he will be remembered most for stealing both second and third base on the same play in Game 4.

Leading off the ninth inning in Philadelphia, with the score tied 4-4, Damon prevailed in a remarkable nine-pitch at-bat by singling off Phillies closer Brad Lidge. With Mark Teixeira at the plate and the Phillies playing an exaggerated shift to the right side, Damon stole second base and kept running when he saw no one was positioned to cover third.

Perhaps Lidge was rattled by Damon’s rare double steal, as he then hit Teixeira with a pitch. Alex Rodriguez followed with a two-run double, and the Yankees went up three games to one with a 7-4 victory.

That ninth inning in Game 4 was a turning point in the Series. The Yankees had held a 4-2 lead, but Chase Utley narrowed the deficit to one with a seventh-inning homer. When Pedro Feliz tied the game with an eighth-inning blast off Joba Chamberlain, the Phillies were positioned to tie the Series with Game 5 also in Philadelphia.

The Phillies rebounded to stay alive in Game 5, but they were 0-for-6 with RISP and stranded 13 runners in Wednesday’s final game. Despite a record-tying five World Series home runs from Utley, they weren’t able to buck a recent trend that they managed to overcome a year ago.

Since 1982, the team with home-field advantage has won 21 of 27 World Series. Last year’s Phillies were one of the six clubs to overcome their opponent’s home-field advantage in this stretch. The others were the 1984 Tigers, 1992 Blue Jays, 1999 Yankees, 2003 Marlins and 2006 Cardinals.

As talented as the 2009 Yankees were, winning twice at Yankee Stadium to close out the season was too much to ask of the Phillies. And history wasn’t on their side in that regard, either. Clinching a World Series title on the road in a sixth or seventh game has been nearly impossible since the Dodgers won Game 6 and the World Series at Yankee Stadium in 1981. Since then, the home team has posted a 19-3 record in Games 6 and 7.

That’s why the All-Star Game shouldn’t determine home-field advantage in October. Still, the Phillies lost the World Series to the Yankees for other reasons.

The top two hitters in their lineup batted .200 and scored only six runs. Cleanup man Ryan Howard didn’t produce and the Phillies as a team failed to hit in the clutch. On top of that, the pitching staff struggled in the biggest games of the year. The rotation looked like a difference-maker going into the playoffs, but it posted a 5.20 ERA against the Yankees. The bullpen, with a 5.74 ERA and an .844 opponent OPS, was even worse.

Posted by Thom Henninger at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If the New York Yankees win their first World Series title in nine years this week, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel will face an offseason of chatter about his decision to start Joe Blanton in Game 4. The Yankees turned to CC Sabathia on three days’ rest, but Manuel chose to go with Blanton and give staff ace Cliff Lee four days off before his Game 5 assignment.

The second-guessers are busy already, as Yahoo! Sports’ Jeff Passan called it a “stupid decision.” He also took Lee to task for not pushing for the start when Manuel asked the left-hander if he was willing. Lee, who agreed to go if called upon, reportedly said it was his job to “pitch when Charlie wants me to pitch. . . I’m not going to try to second-guess or anything like that. I would have been happy either way.”

Passan’s response: “Aces don’t say that,” adding that “Lee should have walked into Manuel’s office, locked the door and said he wasn’t leaving until promised the Game 4 start.”

That’s not Lee’s personality. Unlike a lot of No. 1 starters, he’s not the fiery type. He also doesn’t have experience pitching on three days’ rest. He’s never done it, and that may have made Lee reluctant to force the issue. The game is loaded with confident and cocky players who would have pushed for the assignment, even if they had failed at it in the past, but Lee isn’t one of them.

Sure, Sabathia is now 5-3 with a 3.26 ERA and .232 opponent batting average in nine career starts on three days’ rest. The guy’s proven to be a workhorse who can handle short-rest gigs. He’s not the norm, however. Over the last five seasons combined, including playoffs, major league pitchers starting on less than four days’ rest have a losing record, a 5.02 ERA and .278 OBA. In this same span, those numbers are 3-4 with a 5.60 ERA and .278 OBA in the postseason.

It’s a clash of old school vs. new school. The old school approach says that under the circumstances, the ace should step up. If he’s hurt, rub some dirt on it. If he’s tired, get over it and give your team the win it needs. The numbers, though, demonstrate the importance of four days off for starters.

Despite the ugly numbers, Passan notes that most of those short-rest starts have gone reasonably well. That’s not altogether surprising, as it’s usually the best starters who get called on to pitch on short rest in October. Yet, the overall numbers suggest the best are compromised and the chance of a disastrous outing by a staff ace multiplies. Plus, Manuel was in the dugout a year ago, when Blanton gave the Phillies three solid outings in the postseason and was masterful in winning last year’s World Series Game 4.

Should Manuel have changed his mind and turned to Lee after the Phillies lost Game 3 at home? Maybe. On the other hand, if Brad Lidge had recorded the final out of the ninth inning last night before the Yankees rallied for three runs, Manuel’s decision might look like a winner today.

Posted by Thom Henninger at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A year ago, the Philadelphia Phillies returned home after splitting the first two games of the World Series with the Tampa Bay Rays. The Phillies scratched for a run in the bottom of the ninth to claim a one-run victory in Game 3, then won two more at home to win a five-game affair.

The Phillies didn’t repeat their Game 3 success last night, as Cole Hamels struggled with command again in an 8-5 loss to the New York Yankees. History tells us it’s a pivotal loss.

Teams have split the first two games of a best-of-seven World Series 51 times prior to this fall’s Yankees-Phillies matchup. The winner of Game 3 has prevailed in 36 -- or 71 percent -- of those 51 World Series.

Tonight’s Game 4 looks to favor the Yankees, as they send CC Sabathia to the mound against Philadelphia’s Joe Blanton. New York manager Joe Girardi is turning to his Game 1 starter on three days’ rest, while Phillies skipper Charlie Manuel has committed to using four starters in the Series and calls on Blanton.

Blanton was successful in Game 4 a year ago, working six innings of a 10-2 victory over the Rays. On Sunday night he faces the dangerous Yankees, a team he has never defeated in four career starts as a member of the Oakland Athletics.

Sabathia is 5-3 with a 3.16 ERA in eight career starts following three days off. Opponents have batted just .228 against him in those outings. Two of those starts have been in the postseason, and they include eight solid innings against the Angels in Game 4 of the ALCS on Oct. 20. The Yankees took a three-games-to-one lead with Sabathia holding the Angels to five hits and a single run in eight innings of a 10-1 victory.

The Yankees southpaw has given up just five earned runs in four postseason starts this fall. The only time he has given up more than a single earned run or taken a loss was World Series Game 1 on Wednesday, when he was touched for two solo homers by Chase Utley.

Hamels’ loss in Game 3 may have Manuel second-guessing whether to stick with Blanton tonight. His Game 1 starter Cliff Lee could be used on three days’ rest, something the left-hander has never done in his big league career.

Saturday’s loss was just the second postseason defeat at home since the Phillies started their push to the World Series title a year ago. They are now 11-2 at Citizens Bank Park in this span, with the only other loss coming against Colorado in Game 2 of this year’s NLDS.

The Phillies can’t afford to lose two in a row before the home crowd, or their season will be all but finished. Not only do they need a strong outing from Blanton, they need Ryan Howard to break out of his funk.

Howard and Alex Rodriguez had been the big guns for their teams going into the World Series, and together they were 2-for-17 with 12 strikeouts in the first two games. A-Rod broke through with a two-run homer off a camera down the right-field line in Game 3, his first hit of the Series, while Howard was 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. The Phillies slugger has now fanned in seven of his last eight at-bats.

Howard isn’t the only struggling Phillie. The top four hitters in the Philadelphia lineup -- Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Utley and Howard -- are collectively 8-for-45 (.178) in the Series. Rollins had the sole hit among the group in Game 3, and that isn’t going to cut it in Game 4.

Posted by Thom Henninger at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)