Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants is perhaps the most stylistically unique starter to debut since Orlando Hernandez. Just as Jeff Bagwell’s batting stance was something like the perfect inverse of everything you’d read in a book on how to hit baseballs, junior high school coaches could use Lincecum’s violent delivery as the centerpiece of an instructional video called “How To Pitch Badly and Hurt Yourself.” And in a triumph for nonconformity in baseball, Lincecum has been the best pitcher in the National League this year. What would work badly for the average 12-year-old works beautifully for him.

Going into last night’s start at Colorado, Lincecum’s record was 15-3, with a 2.43 earned run average. He led the league in earned run average, strikeouts, strikeouts per nine innings, and winning percentage, all by large margins. He rated third in wins and seventh in innings pitched, just 10.2 out of the lead. Adjusted for park and league effects, his ERA was 76% better than league average; no one else was more than 52% better.

Absurdly, though, Lincecum probably won’t win the Cy Young award this year; after all, he pitches for a lousy team and won’t lead in wins. Since 1987, 18 starters have won the Cy Young. Only Pedro Martinez, when he won for Montreal in 1997, pitched for a losing team. Eleven led the league in wins, another four ranked in the top three, and the other three were Martinez, Greg Maddux, and Randy Johnson, in the kinds of monster years that make win totals irrelevant. One can just imagine Lincecum pulling it out if he wins all his remaining starts in impressive fashion. But more likely, he’ll get jobbed.

This leaves open the question of who will waltz off with his hardware. Milwaukee’s C.C. Sabathia is in the midst of one of the more dominant pitching runs in decades, but he spent the first two months of the year in the American League, and so isn’t really qualified. More likely, Arizona’s Brandon Webb will win. He’s 19-6, with five remaining starts, three against NL West rivals whom he usually grinds into dust. This wouldn’t be an outrage — Webb is a terrific pitcher enjoying a terrific year — but a solid half-dozen pitchers have been at least as good this year, and one of them might steal the award from him before he can steal it from Lincecum.

The second-best pitcher in the league has been Johan Santana, who’s third in ERA, first in innings, and first in having his record ruined by lousy luck and bad bullpen support. He’s at the top of a tier of non-Lincecum contenders including Webb, his teammate Dan Haren, Milwaukee’s Ben Sheets, Chicago’s Ryan Dempster, Philadelphia’s Cole Hamels, and Los Angeles’s Chad Billingsley. All have adjusted ERAs between 41% and 52% better than average; all have pitched between 175.2 and 196 innings; all have between 160 and 177 strikeouts. In other words, there’s little to tell the difference between them.

We can discount several of these men out of hand. At 13-10, Billingsley is barely above .500; Hamels could win all his remaining games and not top 16 wins, and Haren is having a great season, with a K/BB ratio nearing six, but won’t beat out a teammate who boasts, as of now, five more wins. These may be dumb reasons, but you could safely bet your house that none of these three will win.

Santana and Sheets are, no matter how good they’ve been this year, just barely more credible candidates for a Cy Young, because of their identical 12-7 records. Sheets has an injured groin and two games remaining against Chicago, who have whacked him for a 4.86 ERA in three starts this year; he isn’t winning anything. For Santana, the problem is that, the way the schedule works out, he may only have four starts the rest of the way. Should he end up winning his 17th and clinching a Mets playoff spot on the last day of the year against Florida, that might change things. But more likely he’ll be able to offer his thanks to the wrecking crew in the Shea bullpen for ruining his chance at becoming the fifth pitcher to win a Cy Young in each league.

By process of elimination, that leaves us with … Ryan Dempster? Yes, Ryan Dempster. Having spent the last several years as a generally terrible closer for the Cubs — his ERA last year was 4.73, the year before that it was 4.80 — he’s had an inexplicable and highly entertaining revival in the rotation this year, and flaunts a 15-5 record and a 2.95 ERA right now with five starts left on the year. Two of those will almost certainly be against Milwaukee, whom he’s dominated this year with a 2.37 ERA in three starts, and another two will be against St. Louis, against whom he’s pitched well in one start. If he wins out, he’ll end up with 20 wins for the best team in baseball, and quite possibly a sub-3.00 ERA. Should Webb stumble, the Braden Looper of Chicago will be right there to snatch up the prize. No one would have seen it coming, but then who ever would have thought baseball’s best team would be playing on the North Side anyway?

tmarchman@nysun.com