When the phone rang, Zack Greinke let it go—he didn’t recognize the number. Only after listening to the voice mail did he call back and find out he’d won the American League Cy Young Award.

The Kansas City Royals ace easily beat out Felix Hernandez for the honor Tuesday after a spectacular season short on wins but long on domination. Winning left the extremely shy Greinke with mixed emotions.

“Back in Orlando, I haven’t really got a whole lot of attention from people, which has been nice,” he said. “So I hope it doesn’t get that way, where everyone is like, ‘Oh, hey, Zack, hi.’ ”

Greinke went 16-8 with a major league-low 2.16 ERA this season and received 25 of 28 first-place votes and three seconds for 134 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.