Sports Thread #1 For 11/17/09: In A No Brainer, Zack Greinke Is AL CY Young Winner

AP Photo/Paul Beaty

Even with his not so stellar final start of the season against the Twins, the only saving grace for the Royals this year becomes the third pitcher in their franchise to win the award

Kansas City Royals right-hander Zack Greinke has been named the American League Cy Young Award winner by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Greinke placed first on 25 of 28 ballots cast by two writers from each AL city and second on three others for a total of 134 points, based on the 5-3-1 tabulation system, as he became the first AL pitcher to win the award while pitching for a last-place team since Roger Clemens won it with Toronto in 1997.

Greinke was the silver lining in another disappointing season for the Royals, going 16-8 with a 2.16 earned run average and 1.07 WHIP, while striking out 242 batters for a Kansas City team that lost 97 games. His league-leading ERA was the AL's lowest since Pedro Martinez posted a 1.74 mark in 2000.

David Cone in '85 and Brett Saberhagen (talk about a name forgotten about) in '89 were the other Kansas City pitchers to do it.

And imagine how many more wins the flame throwing righty would have garnered if he had some sort of run support from the punchless Royals' offense

In fact, in his eight losses, the Royals mustered just 15 runs.

It is a fine turnaround for Greinke, who had to endure his rocky start in the majors, including that league-high 17 lose today in 2005, as well as dealing with social anxiety orders the following year.

The thoughts that Greinke could get nabbed by either CC Sabathia or Felix Hernandez at regular season's end were thanks in large part to Greinke win total of course.

But thankfully in the end, the writers clearly saw that the 26 year old Greinke was the best pitcher this year in the Junior Circuit. Let's see if they get it right tomorrow in regards to Adam Wainwright beating his teammate Chris Carpentier for the National League version of the award.