Lincecum Wins NL Cy Young Award: the Freak Does it Again

My preseason NL Cy Young pick: Cole Hamels

NL Cy Young Award winner: Tim Lincecum

For the second year in a row, San Francisco Giants’ ace Tim Lincecum has won the National League Cy Young award. Great, now I have to hear St. Louis Cardinal fans whine some more.

Is there a fan base in sports that is more sensitive about their players winning awards than Cardinal fans? It’s overkill.

Lincecum received 100 points to beat out Cardinal pitcher's Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright in a very close race. Carpenter received 94 votes and Wainwright received 90 points.

Just like with his fellow Cy Young award winner, Zack Greinke, Lincecum’s win total didn’t reflect how good of a year he really had. Lincecum only had 15 wins, which tied him for forth in the NL with seven other pitchers.

Lincecum, however, led the NL in strike outs with 261, complete games with four, quality starts with 26, was second in ERA with 2.48, and was forth in WHIP with 1.05.

Lincecum is off to an amazing start in his career. Do you realize that he has pitched just two full seasons in the majors and has won two Cy Young awards?

That is ridiculous.

The only one I could think of off the top of my head who has accomplished something like this would be Roger Clemens in 86′-87′. Clemens started 15 games in 85′ and then broke out in 86′.

Lincecum becomes the first pitcher to win back-to-back Cy Young awards since Randy Johnson won four in a row from 1999-2002.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg