Postseason awards

Unfortunately, it's time to hand out the Sox team awards for 2005 (I was hoping to do this much later in the month). My nominees:

Best starting pitcher: Tim Wakefield. On a staff full of middling performances, Wake posted 16 wins and recorded 151 strikeouts.

Best bullpen pitcher: Mike Timlin. Not a lot of competition here, except from Mike Myers.

Best hitting pitcher: Wade Miller. Believe it or not, Miller played long enough this season to get 3 at-bats, and 2 hits, for a .667 average. Well, he did come over from the NL. Honorable mention: Tim Wakefield, who went 2-for-8 (.250) with an RBI. Of course, he too spent some time in the senior circuit.

Best bench player: John Olerud. Olerud provided solid late-inning defense and a left-handed bat with some pop off the bench, hitting .289 with 7 homers.

Best midseason acquisition: Tony Graffanino. Graffanino came over from Kansas City and hit .319 the rest of the way, filling a hole in the order created by the hole in Mark Bellhorn's bat.

Best baserunner: Johnny Damon. Again, not a lot of competition here. Damon, the team's only legitimate base-stealing threat, swiped 18 bags, was caught stealing only once and scored 117 runs, a total surpassed only by David Ortiz (119).

Rookie of the Year: Johnathan Papelbon. In 17 appearances, he went 3-1 with a 2.45 ERA and 34 strikeouts.

Gold Glove: Jason Varitek. Varitek is known around the league for his ability to handle a pitching staff and his leadership between the lines is marked by the "C" on his chest. He made 8 errors and was charged with 7 passed balls, but because he handles the ball so much, his fielding percentage was still .990. Plus, he threw out nearly a third of runners attempting to steal. Honorable mention: Trot Nixon, who made several nice plays and only 1 error this season.

MVP: Guess. Honorable mention: Manny Ramirez.