An interesting situation is developing in the American League Cy Young Award race with seven weeks to go in the season.

Felix Hernandez keeps on losing even as his ERA continues to get better and better. Hernandez is now 8-10 with a 2.62 earned run average. We heard last year how Zack Greinke was going to put to the test the notion that wins for a pitcher are overrated and should not matter.

Well, if that was the case, Hernandez is going to have to make the case that wins for a pitcher are completely irrelevant.

Greinke won 16 games in an AL where there were three 19-game-winners and a 17-gamer. Tim Lincecum actually won the N.L. Cy Young with a record-low 15 wins, but there was only one 19-game winner and a 17-game winner, so the lack of wins by him stood out a bit less.

But Hernandez could very well turn the entire notion of victories and the Cy Young on its ear because there could be a half-dozen AL pitchers with 18 or more wins this year. Hernandez will be fortunate to reach 12 or 13.

Take away wins and losses, though, and let’s see where he fares:

INNINGS

HERNANDEZ 189
Sabathia 174 2/3
Pavano 168
Weaver 163
Lee 161 1/3

ERA

Buchholz 2.49
Cahill 2.50
Lee 2.58
HERNANDEZ 2.62
Lester 2.80

STRIKEOUTS

Weaver 182
HERNANDEZ 172
Lester 165
Liriano 150
Morrow 151

COMPLETE GAMES

Lee 7
HERNANDEZ 5
Pavano 5
Braden 4
Romero 3

Notice that Hernandez is in the top-five of just about every pitching category of Cy Young significance?

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