Tim Lincecum(notes) may well work his way back into the discussion starting tonight against Colorado, but the NL Cy Young race is currently being contained inside the Cardinals' clubhouse.
Yes, forget about those brothers from Boston because Chris Carpenter(notes) and Adam Wainwright(notes) in St. Louis form the most fearsome 1-2 punch come postseason time.
And while they'll team up to try and bring the Cardinals another World Series title, they're currently dueling against each other for the award.
I find this interesting and pretty cool for two reasons:
1. They're teammates Having two strong Cy candidates at the top of a rotation is a nice problem for any team to have, but will that mean a split vote come ballot time? That's hard to say, but teammates have finished 1-2 in the Cy Young voting a total of four times. Don Newcombe and Sal Maglie took the top two spots in 1956 for the Dodgers, Mike Marshall and Andy Messersmith did the same in 1974 and Arizona's Randy Johnson(notes) and Curt Schilling(notes) dominated the votes in both 2001 and 2002.
2. Neither made the All-Star team This is especially hard to believe, considering that it was held in St. Louis, but both Carpenter and Wainwright were nowhere to be found at this year's All-Star Game. Carpenter's absence was understandable. Though he had a 7-3 record with a 2.47 ERA at the break, he had missed time to injury and everyone was still feeling out if he was really back. As for Wainwright, I have no idea and don't really remember too many people making a stir over his 10-5 record and 3.04 ERA being left off the team. By the way, the last Cy Young winner to not appear on the All-Star team was Johan Santana(notes) in 2004. He was 7-6 with a 3.78 ERA at the break.
So which pitcher has a better chance of taking home the hardware? Until Sunday's seven earned runs, I think the no-doubt answer was Carpenter and his league-leading ERA. However, he's since surrendered that lead to Lincecum and allowed Wainwright to make a case with his league-leading 18 wins and consistency from start to finish. Wainwright also has a 9-2, 1.81 mark since the All-Star break to his name as well.
As I said before, Tiny Tim still has time to atone for the hit he's going to take for his low 13-win total — it's not his fault given San Francisco's awful offense, but it's still going to hurt him — and both Cardinals pitchers have a few more starts to better state their case.
It all makes for an intriguing race for an individual honor and maybe for one of the best feelings a fan base can have headed into October. I'm sure St. Louis won't argue.
At this point, which pitcher would be getting your vote? Why?
