Maybe my dad is right... Tim Lincecum might be the Cy Young Winner

This August, my dad and I were talking about what a great year Tim Lincecum was having.

My dad said "He's the Cy Young winner."
I countered "He'll get some votes, but Webb is winning it."

My dad just responded "He should win it" and continued eating his cereal.

Now it must be noted that my dad is the single most optimistic Giants fan you will ever meet.

Last year with the Giants dead in the water, he still mapped out ways the Giants could win the west.

And you will never meet a bigger defender of Barry Bonds.
OK, maybe Greg Anderson was a bigger defender of Bonds.
But for all the people who defended Bonds and DIDN'T go to jail, my dad is right up there.

So I took dad's take on Tim Lincecum as a bit of Giants fan bias.
Sure Lincecum was 14-3 with a 2.48 ERA for the Giants and he was having a great year.

But at that time Webb was 19-4 with a 2.74 ERA. He was not only going to be the first 20 game winner in the NL since Dontrelle Willis won 22 in 2005... but looked to be on pace to win 25 or more, which hasn't been done in the NL since Steve Carlton in 1972.

Plus he was the ace of the first place Diamondbacks (they would pull ahead to a 4 1/2 game lead in late August) and seemed poised to win his second Cy Young in three years.

Clearly Webb had it locked up.

Well since then, Webb lost two critical games to the Dodgers.
And they weren't pitchers duels.
On the last day of August with a chance to put LA away, the ace of the staff got crushed. The D'Backs were down 4 before they even came to bat and Webb couldn't get out of the 4th.

A week later, Webb got crushed by the Dodgers again. This time it cost the Diamondbacks the lead in the NL West... and by the looks of it, it looks like they fell from first place for good.

Ace pitchers don't take you OUT of the pennant race.

All the while Lincecum has brought his record up to 17-3.
He has the lowest ERA among NL Starters.
He has struck out the most batters.
He has the lowest batting average against among NL starters.
He has a better Walks and Hits per innings pitched ratio than Webb.
He has pitched the 4th most innings of any NL pitcher.

The only major category that Webb has him beat is wins... but Linecum has had no offense behind him. When Bengie Molina and Aaron Rowand lead your team with 13 homers, you know you have moved on from the Bonds era.

And besides Brian Wilson (who has been up and down) the bullpen, consisting of the Jack Taschners, Tyler Walkers and Alex Hinshaws of the world don't exactly strike fear in the hearts of mortal men.

He has 5 no decisions this year where he pitched 7 innings or more. Throw 2 of those in his win collumn and he'd be talked about as a 20 game winner.

So maybe my dad was right.
Maybe Lincecum is being penalized for playing on a bad team while Webb, who pitched the D'Backs out of this race, has thrown 2 good games since the LA beating and will probably claim the prize.

But they should listen to my dad.

Also a note on my dad, who is as good a baseball fan as you will meet... he loves to call home runs before they are hit.

The pitcher goes into his wind up and he'll say "It's gone."
Most of the time the pitch is taken, fouled off, popped up... anything but a homer.

But every once in a while my dad will say "it's gone" and the batter hits it out.
My dad will turn to me and say "I called it."

And you can't deny that he did...