As the end of the regular season draws nearer, the race for they Cy Young award gets closer.
R.A. Dickey and Gio Gonzalez both won their games over the weekend, and they now lead the league in wins with 19 and 20, respectively. Dickey and Gonzalez are the front-runners (among starters…more on this in a moment), but Clayton Kershaw continues to hang around, as he guts his way through a hip injury. Matt Cain and Kyle Lohse still have an outside chance of walking away with the award.
Dickey leads the league in ERA, WHIP (tied with Kershaw), innings pitched, complete games, and shutouts. He’s second in the league in strikeouts and wins, and third in the league in WAR.
Gonzalez leads the league in only one category: wins. He’s sixteenth in innings pitched with 193, fifth in ERA, sixth in WHIP, fourth in Ks, fourth in WAR, and has two complete games and one shutout.
In every category besides wins, Dickey has a clear advantage. One could also make the case that Dickey’s success has come at a higher degree of difficulty, considering the kind of year the Mets are having in 2012.
Here are the numbers:
| RK | Player | Team | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | BB | SO | AVG | WHIP▲ |
| 1 | Kershaw, C | LAD | 12 | 9 | 2.68 | 31 | 31 | 211 | 162 | 58 | 211 | 0.214 | 1.04 |
| 2 | Dickey, R | NYM | 19 | 6 | 2.66 | 32 | 31 | 220 | 177 | 52 | 209 | 0.223 | 1.04 |
| 3 | Cain, M | SF | 15 | 5 | 2.86 | 30 | 30 | 207 | 169 | 49 | 185 | 0.224 | 1.05 |
| 4 | Lohse, K | STL | 16 | 3 | 2.77 | 32 | 32 | 205 | 184 | 37 | 134 | 0.236 | 1.08 |
| 5 | Bumgarner, M | SF | 16 | 10 | 3.26 | 31 | 31 | 204 | 179 | 47 | 187 | 0.233 | 1.11 |
| 6 | Gonzalez, G | WSH | 20 | 8 | 2.84 | 31 | 31 | 193 | 143 | 73 | 201 | 0.204 | 1.12 |
Of course, the voters could go off and pull an Eckersley and give the Cy Young to a relief pitcher. Jayson Stark of ESPN made the case for Atlanta closer Craig Kimbrel recently. He and the Reds’ Aroldis Chapman have been dominant out of the bullpen. Dominant enough to steal the award from a starter?
Kimbrel in particular has been insane. He’s allowed only 7 earned runs all season, and has the highest K/IP ratio since…ever. He has the Rolaids Relief Man award locked up (Do they still call it that? I just like writing it), but does he deserve a Cy Young as well? Discuss below.
Here are the numbers for Kimbrel and Chapman:
| RK | Player | Team | W | L | ERA | SV▼ | SVO | IP | H | BB | SO | AVG | WHIP |
| 1 | Kimbrel, C | ATL | 2 | 1 | 1.08 | 39 | 42 | 58 | 25 | 14 | 106 | 0.126 | 0.67 |
| 2 | Chapman, A | CIN | 5 | 5 | 1.57 | 35 | 40 | 68 | 34 | 21 | 119 | 0.142 | 0.8 |
1 comment
srt
9/25/2012-8:17am at 8:17 am (UTC -4)
Heard on Sports Night last night that once the Nats clinch the division, Davey is going to start resting his top starters for post season. And said he doesn’t care about any criticism he might get for it.
That might mean Gio winds up with one less start than Dickey has left.