Tim the Enchanter

Tim Lincecum is having an amazing season, and aside from a Sports Illustrated cover story, it seems to be largely overlooked.

Lincecum's win percentage is .810 on a team with a .445 win percentage (and the SF bullpen has blown five leads for him). He's got a 2.46 ERA and his ERA+ is 174, well ahead of No. 2 Johan Santana at 155. The only NL pitchers over the last 40 years to lead the NL with a better mark are Roger Clemens, Jason Schmidt, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Kevin Brown, Pedro Martinez, Dwight Gooden, Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, and Bob Gibson.

His splits are incredible. Against RHB, Lincecum is .222/.289/.332 while against LHB he's .219/.299/.292. His BABIP is around .300 against both righties and lefties, which indicates his numbers are legit, not a fluke.

With men on base, he's .190/.243/.268 and with RISP he's .163/.234/.261. With a man on third and less than 2 outs, he's .125/.225/.156. Talk about rising to the occasion.

The third time (or more) through the batting order, he's .209/.292/.309.

Consider, Santana is .228/.277/.338 his first time through the order and .280/.332/.441 the third time (or more) through. Brandon Webb's splits for those situations are .205/.251/.260 and .263/.338/.386.

Lincecum, for the record, is .193/.261/.293 his first time through the order. Now, look again at his figures for the third time through. You don't solve a problem like Tim.

He's got 243 K in 215.2 IP.

To me, he's the NL Cy Young Award winner. It will be interesting.