If Nick Markakis isn?t the Orioles? Most Valuable Player, Cal Ripken isn?t a Hall of Famer.
The name of the game is consistency, and Markakis delivered in every game but the finale ? a day-off parting gift from manager Dave Trembley for Markakis? valuable efforts throughout the season.
In a team-best 161 games, Markakis won the Orioles Triple Crown by leading the team in batting average (.300), home runs (23) and RBIs (112).
Let me repeat: 112 RBIs.
As a 23-year-old in his second season.
For a team that only scored 756 runs.
He also stole 18 bases and played Gold Glove-qualitydefense in right field. He threw out 13 base runners ? seventh-best in the majors ? with a lethal left arm, and committed just two errors in 318 chances for a .994 fielding percentage. He?s perfected how to defend the most difficult patch of grass at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
Markakis was named on all 28 ballots by the Baltimore media en route to being named the Louis M. Hatter Most Valuable Oriole. Markakis got 23 first-place votes. Erik Bedard got four and Brian Roberts one. It was a run-away.
Sure, Bedard had a good season, but winning 13 games and pitching once every fifth day doesn?t cut it in the MVP race.
Bruce Chen won 13 for the O?s in 2005. Rodrigo Lopez won 14 once and 15 twice.
Yeah, Bedard struck out 221 batters, but he said it himself earlier this year: The strikeouts don?t mean anything. Wins do.
And Bedard gave up on his team.
In the year of the oblique strain, Bedard succumbed. But he also gave in to losing, and left the team with three weeks to go while Jeremy Guthrie gutted-out his injury and threw one last time in the game?s final week. Guthrie wanted to throw out of the bullpen on Sunday. That?s heart. Bedard can learn from the rookie.
And Bedard got winded running from first to third in an interleague game against the Nationals.
If Nick Markakis wanted to, the former pitcher could probably be Bedard?s sidekick in the rotation. Markakis went 12-0 with a 1.68 ERA and led the nation with 160 strikeouts at Young Harris Junior College in 2003. Oh, and he added a .439 average with 21 homers and 92 RBIs.
Markakis could forget about being the Orioles? Most Valuable Player and focus on becoming the present-day Babe Ruth.
In his second edition of “The Great Baltimore Sports Debate,” esteemed Examiner columnist/Ravens beat writer/rec softball legend-in-his-own-mind Matt Palmer opined about Markakis? future destination: Cooperstown, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Markakis was No. 5 on Palmer?s list of rising stars in Baltimore sports.
Where was Erik Bedard? Not on Palmer?s list ? which, for the record, included two Ravens receivers, Demetrius Williams and Mark Clayton. Ouch.
And I?m pretty sure Markakis would score in the red zone.
Sean Welsh covers the Orioles, college and high school sports for The Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected]
