When Brandon Webb hits the hill tonight for Arizona he’ll be shooting for 20 wins. I’d normally ignore a story like this but I didn’t realize that if he gets the “W” tonight he’ll be the first National League pitcher to reach that mark since Chris Carpenter, Roy Oswalt and Dontrelle Willis did so in 2005.

Yes, that’s right – the NL hasn’t had a 20 game winner in three seasons.

What’s even more amazing to me is that after tonight’s game the Diamondbacks will have 30 games left – so he should get six more starts.

Arizona and Webb will face a sad San Diego team that will send Chad Reineke to the mound. Webb has been rock solid this season against the Padres, going 2-0 and allowing only a single unearned run this year. But he’s only 6-7 against San Diego in his career.

With apologies to San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum, who has had a fantastic season, and CC Sabathia, who has been incredible since moving to Milwaukee, Webb has all but sewn up the Cy Young Award. He does face a couple hurdles tonight. He was hit in the ribs by a Kevin Kouzmanoff line drive in his last start. And before I realized what his situation was, I put a small wager on Arizona to win the game at CentSports.com, the site my brother keeps pimping at sister site, Zoneblitz.com. My betting on you is usually the kiss of death.

Nonetheless, I wish Webb luck. I knew he was having a great season but I didn’t realize just how good it was. It’d be neat to see a pitcher, in this day and age of six inning starts, approach 24 or 25 wins for once. Webb apparently has a bit of throwback to him.