It's No Mystery

As a member of the Baseball Blogger's Alliance, I am privileged to cast my vote for the American League's top pitcher. The BAA award for the top pitcher is known as the Walter Johnson award. If you don't know who Walter Johnson is, click here. Although I would love to provide a lot of insightful analysis, I am serving jury duty this week, and have to use the evenings to do some work for my day job. I know, cry me a river.

My top five American League pitchers appear below.

Justin Verlander, Detroit

Jered Weaver, Los Angeles

James Shields, Tampa Bay

Josh Beckett, Boston

Dan Haren, Los Angeles

All I have time to say is, what a year by Verlander. It was so much fun watching him take the hill this season. Kudos to him for taking his game to a whole new level. Almost every outing, it felt like there was a chance he could throw another no hitter.

I wanted to include Doug Fister, but didn't want to seem like a homer. His numbers were very comparable to Haren's.

Enjoy the World Series (if that's possible). I know I'll be watching, but will be thinking with every pitch "that should be my Tigers out there." To add insult to injury, a radio station played "Written in the Stars" on my way home from the Detroit court house today. I ask you, is that humane?