For my money, nobody has been better than in the National League than Chad Billingsley and right now, he is the frontrunner to win the NL Cy Young Award.
How can you argue that he's not?
On top of being 9-3 with a 2.72 ERA and 93 strikeouts, he's lasted six innings or more in 13 of his 14 starts. The one that he didn't, he went 5 2/3 and fought to stay in the ball game.
Even when he hasn't had his best stuff, Billingsley has grown up this year and has battled through it.
His nine wins are tied for tops in the NL and his 93 K's are good for fourth. His ERA ranks fifth in the league and he is fourth in innings pitched. In the four most important stats for a pitcher, he ranks in the top five. He is the only one in the top five of all four of these categories.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a slam dunk that Billingsley is the frontrunner for the award, because he's got some company, namely Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants.
Cain has nine wins and just one loss, but here is what separates Billingsley from Cain: On top of having more innings pitched, he's got about 33 percent more strikeouts and he leads the league in swings and misses forced.
To me, Dan Haren is just as big a competitor as Cain. Haren has a 2.20 ERA, and has five wins. He has lost a couple of wins to the Diamondbacks horrible bullpen. He also has more innings pitched and nearly as many strikeouts. However, Haren has faded down the stretch in the last two seasons, and I see it happening again. Billingsley pitching for a winner is going to work in his favor.
One would be remiss to not mention Johnny Cueto of the Reds, who lowered his ERA to 2.17, which is phenomenal. Billingsley, however, has three more wins and 31 more strikeouts on top of more innings pitched.
Tim Lincecum, who leads the league in strikeouts, is going to be a threat to defend his crown. His 2.66 ERA is impressive, and he's only loss one time. Six wins is hurting him right now.
Josh Johnson of the Marlins is a young stud. He is 6-1 with a 2.76 ERA. Billingsley, at this point, is better in both categories, on top of having more strikeouts.
Johan Santana will be there when the season ends, but right now he's not going well. His ERA rose to 3.29 after giving up nine earned against the Yankees.
It's up to Billingsley to keep it up, and force the voters hand. They can't ignore him if he continues to win games (say 20) and if he has 225-plus strikeouts to go with a sub-three ERA.
When Bills pitches I feel confident that the other team is going to score 3 runs or less and if our offense shows up then its in the bag. Lowe was money but its been since we had a healthy Kevin Brown that we could expect to win the game if he pitched. Bills is a Cy Young candidate being the best pitcher on one of the best staffs in the league.
Thank God were done with the offdays!
Billingsley is the best pitcher going in the NL right now, hands down.
Just in case nobody scrolls back through posts I feel the need to duplicate my thoughts.
Nice Game last night J.Martin!! Nice groundball that the 3B threw in the dirt...nice fly ball that you swung as hard as you could in the ninth that went to shallow left! Please keep in mind J.Martin if your going to act like a big shot mlb player then you need to continue to hit like one!!!! Thank god your finally batting eighth and all but seriously find your head and pull it out of your ass J.Martin! You were my favorite player but the attitude, your defense sucks and you cant hit a lick is getting embarrassing and cant support you playing over Ausmus much longer....Ausmus can block the ball in the dirt, throw runners out and still not hit a lick if need be.
bills all the way... after lincecum got beat, bills can get himself ahead in the race by pitching well against the Angels...