Cy Young Award

In a sport dominated by pitching, it's hard to remember a better time to be invested in the respective Cy Young races.

This a great season if you're a fan of stellar pitching, as there are a number of frontline starters who have routinely left us in awe. Having to decide on just one Cy Young candidate in each league will be an unenviable task for voters later this year.

If the Giants absolutely, live or die, had to win just one game (say in a wild-card situation) wouldn't manager Bruce Bochy have to put Ryan Vogelsong on the mound?

He's the obvious choice to me.  

Through two months (just about) of the 2012 MLB season, the American League Cy Young race features some usual suspects and one not-so-usual suspect.

That would be Chicago White Sox lefty Chris Sale. He hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention, but he's been one of the best pitchers in baseball for the month of May, and his numbers for the season are all solid. His first season as a starting pitcher is going pretty well.

That's gone by fast.

It seems as though just yesterday was the start of the 2012 MLB Season. Yet we find ourselves in the middle of May at the quarter-mark of the 162-game season wondering, "Where did all that time go?"

That's baseball for you, folks. The next quarter will fly by as quickly as the last, and soon enough, it will be September, in the heat of playoff races. And playoff time means time for awards. 

With a little over a week to go in the month of May, the race for the American League Cy Young award is starting to heat up.

As things stand right now, there are some pretty heavy hitters in the mix to win the award, including several former Cy Young winners. The guys who are supposed to be pitching well are pitching well, which I suppose makes perfect sense.

The first month of the 2012 Major League Baseball season is over, so let us all sit back and entertain various "If the season ended today..." scenarios.

For example, who would win the American League Cy Young if the season ended today?

Good question. Jake Peavy is an outstanding candidate, and at this point we have to recognize Yu Darvish as a legit Cy Young contender. Very quietly, Felix Hernandez has looked a lot like the pitcher who won the AL Cy Young back in 2010.

The new season is has been in a full swing for three weeks now and we have seen just a preview of the great baseball to come the rest of the year.

There have been many surprises this year so far, the most recent being Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox throwing a perfect game against the Seattle Mariners.

I will be taking a look at every major MLB award and have an updated prediction for it.

Enjoy.

We are just a few days away from the All-Star break for the 2011 MLB season.

We've already seen some spectacular performances in the first half from expected names and some newcomers alike.

Like last season, baseball has been largely dominated by incredible pitching performances. Pitchers are going deeper into games than they have in recent memory and leaving most hitters in the dust.

There have been a few exceptions however.

With that in mind, here are the best (and just for fun, the worst) in the AL and NL this season

In his last 10 starts Felix Hernandez has been nothing short of brilliant, giving up no earned runs in five of those outings and one earned run in four other games during that stretch.

He went eight innings in half of the starts, and if the Mariners didn't hit like the Bad News Bears, Hernandez would win the AL Cy Young award this year by a landslide.

In recent weeks a lot has been made about the American League Cy Young award and the debate has mostly surrounded CC Sabathia vs. Felix Hernandez. Last night the Yankees were blanked by Jon Lester and it was an amazing performance that should put him into that conversation as well.

First, let’s get some stats out of the way: