Matt Holliday: MVP Candidate Scores Winning Run
| 20
|
by Niteowl049
Matt Holliday: MVP Candidate
Matt Holliday was born on New Year’s Day in 1980 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He played baseball for Stillwater High School and was drafted 210th overall by the Rockies in the 1998 amateur draft. He was the second major leaguer that was born in Stillwater with the other being Josh Fields.
He started his professional career with the Arizona Rockies in 1998 and hit .342 that season. He played a total of six years in Rockies minor league system and reached the major leagues in 2004 when he hit 14 home runs and drove in 57 runs and hit .290 in his rookie season.
In his 2005 season he hit 19 home runs and drove in 87 runs while hitting .307. Then in 2006 season he continued to improve hitting 34 home runs and drove in 114 runs while hitting .326.
This season he won the NL batting championship with a .340 average while hitting 36 home runs and driving in NL leading 137 runs. After falling four hits shy of the 200 hits mark in 2006, Holliday had a NL leading total of 216 hits this season. He led the NL in doubles with 50 and his 36 home runs were only bettered by Prince Fielder, Ryan Howard, and Adam Dunn among National Leaguers.
Holliday led all major leaguers in total bases with 386 and also led the majors in extra base hits with 92. He ranked second in the NL in slugging with a .607 percentage.
Even more important than his personal achievements in his career he is a team player and that was shown last night as he scored the winning run in the 9-8 win over the Padres that gave the Rockies a win in one game playoff. Holliday had hit a triple over Trevor Hoffman the Padres' bullpen ace who blew a save for the second time in three games.
Holliday and Jimmy Rollins may be the two top candidates for NL MVP, but Holliday picked up a few votes with his performance last night. The two candidates will play in Philadelphia tomorrow. Even though the voting may not cover post season games it will be interesting to see which player does better during this playoff series. One thing for sure Matt Holliday didn’t hurt his chances of winning the NL MVP last night.
