Houston Astros: Zack Greinke keeps adding NL hardware
Houston Astros RHP Zack Greinke becomes the first pitcher since 2003 to win both the NL Gold Glove and the NL Silver Slugger awards in the same season.
Zack Greinke, one of three stellar starting pitchers for the Houston Astros spent all but the last two months of the season with the Arizona Diamondbacks. As a result of this, he is piling up hardware from his time there.
The league announced yesterday their silver slugger awards and Greinke won the award for pitchers in the National League. Coupled with his earlier NL Gold Glove award, he accomplished something only one other pitcher had done, but we’ll talk about that later.
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Greinke had an incredible year at the plate and on the mound, both defensively and pitching. As far as hitting, he slashed .271/.300/.583 with 3 home runs and 8 RBI’s. Now that may not seem like big numbers, but for a pitcher that is huge. This is his second silver slugger award, with the first coming in 2013 in his first season with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
To be honest if you can get anything from a pitcher at the plate, it should be counted as a win. Most times the pitcher comes up to bat, you usually mark it as an out and move along. At least with Greinke that is not a given and pitchers actually had to plan on how to pitch to him.
Now I mentioned above there is only one other pitcher who has won both the gold glove and silver slugger awards in a single season. It was Mike Hampton in 2003 as a member of the Atlanta Braves.
To put Houston Astros RHP Zack Greinke’s season in perspective, Hampton slashed .183/.246/.350 with 2 home runs and 8 RBI’s. Unlike Greinke, this was the only year he won the Gold Glove, but it was his 5th silver slugger award in a row.
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It is unfortunate he isn’t even in the race for the Cy Young award, because his year was good enough to at least garner some consideration. It’s probably for the best because with Gerrit Cole likely to win the AL Cy Young award, it would be weird for teammates to win both the NL and AL Cy Young awards.