Major League Baseball gives out a ton of awards. Some of them we care about. Some of them we don't care about. Some of them we only care about when we're given a reason to care about them. This is one of those last ones.
Michael Pineda named AL Rookie of Month for April, beating out Zach Britton, Aaron Crow, Mark Trumbo, Jordan Walden
Pineda's only the third Mariner to win a Rookie of the Month award, along with Rafael Soriano and Ichiro. And while a Rookie of the Month award isn't the same as a Rookie of the Year award, winning the former presumably improves one's odds of winning the latter, so that's neat. Oakland's Andrew Bailey won the AL ROY in 2009 and Texas' Neftali Feliz won the AL ROY in 2010, so it'd be nice to see Seattle's Pineda get it in 2011, and then for no Angel to even come close to getting it in 2012 because the whole team spent the entire season battling influenza.
For the curious, the April vote-getters:
Pineda: 5 starts, 31.1 innings, 2.01 ERA, 12 BB, 30 K
Britton: 5 starts, 31.2 innings, 2.84 ERA, 12 BB, 19 K
Crow: 11 appearances, 13.2 innings, 0.00 ERA, 5 BB, 14 K
Trumbo: 91 PA, .239/.264/.432, 2 BB, 23 K
Walden: 13 appearances, 12.1 innings, 0.73 ERA, 6 BB, 12 K
Starter Pineda beat out a less effective starter, an effective middle reliever, an effective closer, and a powerful first baseman with little concept of the strike zone. Other interesting rookies that apparently didn't get any support include Kyle Drabek, Jeremy Hellickson and J.P. Arencibia. Pineda isn't going to coast to the AL ROY, but he looks to be off to the strongest start.