MLB

• Beckett hopes to add some more hardware

  
  

  (Sports Network) - The Baseball Writers' Association of America will continue to dole out their postseason awards on Tuesday, as the American League's Cy Young Award winner will be announced.

  Boston right-hander Josh Beckett is the odds-on-favorite to take home the award after leading the major leagues in wins this season with 20, compared to just seven losses. He also pitched to a 3.27 earned run average and was a big reason behind the Red Sox's second World Series championship in four years.

  Beckett also drastically lowered his walks and home runs allowed from a year ago, giving up just 40 base on balls and 17 homers. He had issued 74 free passes in 2006 along with 36 home runs.

  The 27-year-old hurler, who upped his win total for the fourth straight season, picked up the ALCS MVP and was brilliant this postseason, going 4-0 with a 1.20 ERA, further cementing his status as the best big game pitcher in baseball today.

  Of course, though, postseason stats don't play into the voting.

  Should Beckett win he will become the fourth Red Sox hurler to win the Cy Young and the first since Pedro Martinez won the second of his back-to-back awards in 2002. Jim Lonborg has also been honored, as well as Roger Clemens on three occasions.

  Beckett's main competition figures to come from Cleveland lefty C.C. Sabathia, who came within one win of becoming the Indians' first 20-game winner since Gaylord Perry in 1974.

  Sabathia finished the season 19-7 with a 3.21 ERA and had an amazing strikeouts-to-walks ratio (209-37).

  However, Cy Young voting has not been kind to Indians pitchers in the past. Since the inception of the award in 1956 only nine Cleveland hurlers have received votes for the prestigious honor with Perry being the team's only winner back in 1972.

  New York right-hander Chien-Ming Wang, who finished second in the voting last season to Minnesota's Johan Santana. will also get some consideration. Despite missing most of the first month of the season, Wang won 19 games for the second straight season and pitched to a 3.70 ERA.

  If Wang finishes second to Beckett, or vice versa for that matter, it would mark the first time since the award was created that Yankee and Red Sox hurlers finished 1-2 in the vote.

  Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim right-handers John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar and Cleveland lefty Fausto Carmona figure to round out the voting.

  The National League Cy Young will be handed out on Thursday.

  11/12 20:23:01 ET