McNally's first 1968 start did not come until the season's fifth game, but he held the Oakland Athletics to one run in a complete game, 4–1 victory on April 17. Despite a 2.23 ERA, he had an 8–8 record through his first two starts of July when Earl Weaver became the manager of the Orioles; starting Weaver's first game on July 11, he threw a two-hit shutout against the Senators, taking only two hours and 12 minutes to do so. That shutout was the first of 12 straight wins for McNally. He held Detroit to one run over innings on July 20 and hit his first major league home run against Denny McLain (who would win 31 games that year) in the Orioles' 5–3 victory. In the last game of the streak, on September 28, he became a 20-game winner for the first time as the Orioles defeated the White Sox 4–2; McNally pitched the whole game, and the two runs he allowed were unearned. McNally finished the season among the AL leaders with 22 wins (second to McLain's 31), a 1.95 ERA (third behind Luis Tiant's 1.60 and Sam McDowell's 1.81), 202 strikeouts (fifth), five shutouts (tied with George Brunet for seventh), and 273 innings pitched (fourth). He broke Barney Pelty's franchise season record of walks plus hits per innings pitched that had been set in 1906, establishing the new franchise record of 0.852 and leading the AL. At the plate, McNally hit three home runs during the 1968 season; he would hit at least one each of the following seasons until the AL adopted the designated hitter rule in 1973. For his successful return from injury, McNally won the Major League Baseball Comeback Player of the Year Award. He finished fifth in AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) voting and was named Baltimore's MVP.