As the Yankees won their 40th pennant last night, it was no surprise that starting pitcher C.C. Sabathia, who was 2-0 with a 1.12 ERA in the series, won the series MVP.  Then again, Alex Rodriguez also had a great series, hitting .429/.567/.952, and certainly would have been a worthy choice had he won the ALCS MVP.  For what it's worth, Fangraphs had Sabathia with the edge in win probability added (WPA), 0.679 to 0.530 over A-Rod.

At first thought, two wins by a starting pitcher seemed like a lock for series MVP.  But just how often has that happened?  I went back and looked at all the league championship series since 1985, the first year of the best-of-seven format.  There have been 25 times a starting pitcher from the winning team has had two victories in the LCS.  He has walked away with the MVP 15 times, which is less than I would have thought.  Two of those non-MVPs though lost out to a fellow teammate who also had two wins.

Here's a look at all the starting pitchers from pennant-winning teams with two wins in the LCS in the last 25 years:

There have been three starting pitchers on losing teams to amass two wins in the LCS.  Mike Scott (1986) captured the MVP award, while Freddy Garcia (2000) and Tim Wakefield (2003) did not.

There have been eight relievers since 1985 to get two wins, the most recent being Julian Tavarez for the 2004 Cardinals.  Jesse Orosco is the only man, starter or reliever, to get three wins in an LCS, accomplishing the feat for the 1986 Mets.  None of the relievers won series MVP.

Don Sutton (1974) and Burt Hooton (1981) join Belcher as the only Dodgers to have two wins in a single NLCS.  MVPs were not awarded for the league championship series until 1977.  Hooton won the 1981 NLCS MVP.