Lincecum wins 2nd straight Cy Young

TIM Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants claimed the National League Cy Young Award for the second successive year on Thursday, winning in a close vote over Cardinals starters Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright.

Lincecum, 15-7 with a 2.48 earned run average for the Giants, received fewer first-place votes than St Louis starter Wainwright in the balloting of members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Wainwright (19-8, 2.63 ERA) finished third in the points tally behind teammate Carpenter (17-4, 2.24 ERA).

Lincecum was named first on 11 of the 32 ballots, cast by two writers from each league city, one fewer than Wainwright, but received 12 second-place votes and nine for third place to finish with 100 points based on a 5-3-1 points distribution.

Carpenter, who got nine first-place votes, finished with a total of 94 points, four more than Wainwright.

"I was lucky in that it was so close and I was able to come out on top," Lincecum, 25, said in a conference call.

The only other time a pitcher won the Cy Young without receiving the most first-place votes was in 1998 when the Atlanta Braves' Tom Glavine had 11 to San Diego Padres reliever Trevor Hoffman's 13, but out-pointed him 98-88.