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Tim Lincecum is the first major league pitcher to 200 K’s in 2008. 

   Tim Lincecum never ceases to amaze us.  He is becoming and is one of the most dominant pitchers in the game today. He is a little guy that throws in the mid to upper 90’s with his moving fastball and has a pretty good hook and devastating change up to add to his arsenal.  Lincecum “The Freak” seems like he can do it all. He can dodge balls, wear them off the leg and bounce back and throw a dominant start the next time out, he can hit, run. This guy is just a freak of nature and an all around athlete. I love watching this kid play and pitch every fifth time. 

 Tim Lincecum also is currently in a Cy Young battle with one of the most effective and dominant pitchers in sinkerballer Brandon Webb, who is 19-4 by the way.  Last night, Brandon Webb threw another gem of his own against the Padres with 7 shutout innings and allowing only three hits. And tonight Tim Lincecum threw 8 dominant shutout innings and only allowing 4 hits the whole night.  Lincecum also added 8 k’s in his dominant outing and is the first major leaguer to reach 200 strikeouts on the year. He leads C.C. Sabathia another potential Cy Young candidate by 8.   Lincecum picked up his 14th victory tonight and lowered his NL leading E.R.A to 2.48.  However, he trails Webb in victories by 5, which clearly you can argue Webb is the unanimous favorite to win Cy Young. However don’t let that deceive you. Lincecum has had 5 or 6 wins blown for him when he left in the late innings with a lead.  Therefore, he should be 19 or 20-3.  One of those outings he actually outpitched Brandon Webb with 7 dominant innings of 2 run ball and 13 k’s while Webb struggled for the most part but pitched 7 innings of his own and allowed 3 runs  to a weak Giants offense team.  But the bullpen (Tyler Walker) blew his 3-2 lead in the 8th and giving Lincecum a hard-luck no decision and Brandon Webb a victory.  But that is baseball.  However, factoring in the D-Backs offense to the Giants offense and the D-Backs bullpen to the Giants bullpen, you can make a case that Lincecum is deserving of the Cy Young award as good as Webb is pitching. Hey, if Webb pitches his D-Backs into first place then he should be the MVP of the league.  Lincecum and Sabathia could also be league MVP’s, but they are pitchers and pitchers usually only contend for the Cy Young award. Well anyways, Lincecum and the Giants offense only average 3.8 runs a game while Webb and the D-Backs offense averages 4.66 runs per game and have a more effective and consistent bullpen than the Giants.  So clearly that is why Webb has more victories than Lincecum. His bullpen has preserved more wins for Webb than the bullpen has for Lincecum.  The biggest case Lincecum can make for the Cy Young is he leads the NL and Webb in E.R.A of his 2.48 to Webb’s E.R.A of 2.74 and has more strikeouts (200 K’s) than Webb (153 K’s) Basically, the only thing Webb has got on Lincecum is victories and his team is in first place, but not first place by much.  Hence, Lincecum has the better winning percentage and I feel that he should be the Cy Young winner because he is a more dominant pitcher than Webb and Lincecum is only in his second full season and Webb has already won a Cy Young award.  Well only time will tell with a month left in the season. We will see who prevails. Is it the 5 foot 11 Lincecum or the 6′2 sinkerballer Webb?

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