The NL Cy Young title is staying in the Land of Lincecum.

After a classic photo finish that saw the third-place pitcher get the most first-place votes, San Francisco's Tim Lincecum(notes) still garnered the highest vote total (100) over Chris Carpenter(notes) (94) and Adam Wainwright(notes) (90) to repeat as the Senior Circuit's top pitcher on Thursday.

Tiny Tim is the first back-to-back winner since Randy Johnson(notes) won four straight between 1999 and 2002. He's the first pitcher in history to win with only 15 victories.

All three hurlers presented convincing cases, but BBWAA voters ultimately decided to look past "High Young's" 15-7 mark and reward his league-high 261 strikeouts and four complete games. His 2.48 ERA was only second to Carpenter's 2.16. (Lincecum, though pitched over 30 innings more than the St. Louis ace, who spent time on the disabled list). 

My gut feeling is that most voters didn't think Lincecum did anything to lose the title, while the Cardinals duo stole votes from each other. Defenders of both St. Louis pitchers will have a case to make with Giants beat writer Henry Schulman — gasp! — providing a great roadmap for why he cast his ballot for Carpenter, a resilient pitcher who dominated down the stretch.

(Lincecum can't hold a grudge against Schulman, either. Back in October, the Giants pitcher said he'd vote for Carpenter if he had a ballot.) 

In the end, the award will stay in the Bay Area and Lincecum will finally have to go in front of the media to answer questions about his recent marijuana run-in (though it's being said he'll release a statement about his charges after answering baseball questions). 

Over his two dominating seasons, Lincecum has often been compared to Henry Rowengartner, the kid pitcher from the movie, "Rookie of The Year."

But given the two Cy Youngs he'll be carrying under his arm while he and the Giants talk about buying out some arbitration-eligible years, perhaps a new comparison would be more apt.

Preston Waters from "Blank Check"?