2009 Silver Sluggers

Congratulations to the 2009 Silver Slugger winners:

American League

C: Joe Mauer
1B: Mark Teixeira

2B: Aaron Hill

SS: Derek Jeter

3B: Evan Longoria

OF: Ichiro

OF: Torii Hunter

OF: Jason Bay

DH: Lind

National League

C: Brian McCann

1B: Albert Pujols

2B: Chase Utley

SS: Hanley Ramirez

3B: Ryan Zimmerman

OF: Ryan Braun

OF: Matt Kemp

OF: Andre Eithier

P: Zambrano

Chase Utley won his fourth Silver Slugger Award. Players, coaches, and managers selected Utley as the best hitting second baseman in the National League.

Utley finished the year with a .282 batting average, .397 on-base percentage, and .508 slugging percentage. Utley hit 31 home runs and drove in 93 runs.

Pablo Sandoval gets snubbed again! First, he's left off the All Star game roster, now he misses out on a silver slugger. Kung Fu Panda had hit .330 with 25 homers and had a .943 OPS. Zimmerman had a .888 OPS.

Blog Note: Please take the Swing and a Long Drive survey! Also, make sure you vote for the "This Year in Baseball" Awards!

Defense Can't Support Lopez

Rodrigo Lopez most likely made his last start as a Phillie. Not because he didn’t pitch well, but because of new additions to the Phillies rotation. If he had pitched well, the Phillies may have considered Lopez differently, but he could not handle his own pressure. Also, poor defense did not factor in well.

Lopez allowed seven runs, three earned, in four innings. In the first, the Phillies had a 1-0 lead, but the Giants went ahead 2-1 in the bottom half of the inning. Jayson Werth misjudged a line drive, and that opened the gates.

In the fourth inning, Pedro Feliz made a throwing error which led to two runs. At the last second, Feliz decided to go for the force out at second base instead of the easy play at first. Assuming Feliz was throwing to first, Chase Utley was off the bag and the ball tipped his glove, scooting to right field.

Pablo Sandoval must have been very unhappy with Charlie Manuel’s All Star selections. He showed Manuel what he missed. He went 2-for-4 with a home run and four runs batted in.

The Phillies weren’t able to provide any offense other than Ryan Howard’s RBI double and Utley’s solo homer. Sanchez threw a pitch that sailed over Utley’s head. Utely clearly had a problem with it and stared him down. On the next pitch he called time before he homered down the right field line.

The Phillies were 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position. The three fielding errors didn’t help either in the 7-2 loss.