Enough of the King-Felix-for-Cy-Young talk already

Felix Hernandez of the Mariners was hammered for seven runs--four earned--and six hits in 6.1 innings, as Seattle fell 7-4 to the LA Angels. The loss for King Felix dropped him to 11-11 on the season despite his 2.39 ERA.

With about four starts left, even if he were to go 4-0 the rest of the way, he'd still end up with 15 wins. (The Angels pitcher who beat the M's on Saturday, by the way, was Ervin Santana, who is 16-9 with an ERA of 4.00.) There's been talk by some in the media, some of his teammates, many in the Seattle media, and quite a few bloggers that Hernandez deserves to win the AL Cy Young because he has the best ERA in the AL and the most strikeouts in the big leagues.

But come on. He's a .500 pitcher. Tim Lincecum won the NL Cy Young with only 15 wins last year, but other than that, the lowest win total for a starting pitcher to win the Cy Young is 16--a feat shared by five pitchers: Zack Greinke (2009 AL), Brandon Webb (2006 NL), David Cone (1994 AL), Greg Maddux (1994 NL), and Rick Sutcliffe (1984 NL).

For Maddux and Cone, the 1994 players' strike hurt their chances to win any more games because the season ended on August 12th. For Sutcliffe, he was traded from Cleveland to the Cubs and was dominant in his 3 1/2-month stay in the NL. In 2006, Webb was tied with several other pitchers for the league lead in wins in a year where nobody really stood out.

Last season, Greinke (16-8, 2.16, 242 K's) and Lincecum (15-7, 2.48 ERA, 261 K's) won the AL and NL awards, respectively, despite lower win totals as there seems to be a shift from traditional thinking by the voters that big win totals are more important than overall numbers. Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter of the Cardinals, for example, would have won the NL award back in the day. (Ironically, Hernandez was runner-up to Greinke last year even though he had 19 wins.)

But the thing is, Hernandez is 11-11. If the Mariners try to get him to pitch deep into ballgames the last four starts of the year to try and give him a shot to win each game and get into the Cy Young discussion, they're only going to hurt his arm for the long term.