Closing up the 2002 Season:
Some final news and notes on the LA Dodgers' World Series championship run:
• As it turns out, left-fielder
Josh Hamilton was named Series MVP. The 21-year-old, who played against
Andrew Zarzour in high school, led LA in hits against Boston with eight (two three-hit games). He had three doubles, one triple and seven RBIs. He was named Player of the Game in Game Three after his 3-for-5 night, with a trio of RBIs.
Hamilton had a hit in every post-season game, and of those 11 contests he enjoyed four multi-hit contests. Hamilton's final line from his first-ever post-season appearance: 21 of 46 (.457 average), six doubles, one triple, 11 RBIs, 9 runs, 6 K's, 1 walk, 1 stolen base. He had an OBP of .468 and a SLG of .630. Maybe the MVP of the whole post-season?
• LA fans probably would give playoff MVP honors to the three main starting pitchers,
Ramon Martinez, Hipolito Pichardo and
Dan Smith. All three were 3-0. Hipo's ERA was a scant 2.08 after 21.2 innings of work. Dodgers fans are bemoaning the fact that LA brass decided not to sign him to an extension, apparently ready to let him be a one-year mercenary before heading back into free agency.
• As for Andrew Zarzour, he finished his post-season with a not-so-good-looking line: Yes he was 1-0 (beating the Braves in Game Four of the NLCS). But blowing up in Game Four of the World Series pushed his post-season ERA to 9.64. In 9.1 innings pitched, Zarzour allowed 17 hits, 11 runs, 10 earned runs (nearly all by the long ball). He did strike out 10 against two walks. Still, as Hamilton kept reminding him, he was a World Series champion.
As the celebrations died down (following parades and such in LA, etc.), the fact that Zarzour had performed so poorly in his final appearance of 2002 really started eating at him. He wondered what the 2003 would bring for him. Would he be able to win a spot in the Dodgers' rotation again or would some young upstart like
BK Kim or 26-year-old
Clay Condrey (currently in Triple A but with aims to be a big league starter) beat him out and push him back to the minors.
And then there was the whole subject of his little brother, Timmy, enlisting in the Marines. He would go off to boot camp at the turn of the year. And then who knows what would happen...
A few other tidbits from the season:
-- CF
Coco Crisp was considered the No. 7 prospect in the Majors. He spent most of the year at Triple A but was called up in September, seeing little action other than pinch running.
-- LA overall had the 19th best Minors system. Part of that is because several young guys (Hamilton, Zarzour among them) are on the Big Club roster
--
Paul Lo Duca had the second-best batting average in the National League, .348
-- LA's No. 1 starter
Ramon Martinez led the NL with 21 wins. The next highest was 18. Could a Cy Young be in the works?
-- Closer
Trevor Hoffman led the NL in saves with 47
-- Believe it or not, Zarzour did not finish in the top 10 in the NL for home runs allowed. That honor went to San Fran's
John Smoltz, who gave up 48. Zarzour surrendered 33 (thanks to injury -- it could have been a lot more)
The Cy Young Award announcements, plus other awards, are coming up next ...
•••• Also, I'll post some season-ending and career stat type stuff on Zarzour and his teammates. If there is anything that folks want to know about in this little world, feel free to ask.
One note: This dynasty will upgrade to OOTP8 (from the dark ages of OOTP5 and 6
) going into the 2003 campaign. It will be interesting to see where that leaves Big Z. And he'll finally get a face! Any tips on how to handle the upgrade from an OOTP6 file are much appreciated... I may play around with things for a bit before officially continuing the story...