AL Manager of the Year: Los Angeles Angels' Mike Scioscia

Mike Scioscia Los Angeles Angels AL Manager of the Year

As much for keeping the Angels together through the death of pitcher Nick Adenhart and a rash of early-season pitching injuries as for winning the AL West, Mike Scioscia was named American League Manager of the Year by the Baseball Writers' Association of America on Wednesday.

Scioscia earned 15 of 28 first-place votes. Runner-up Ron Gardenhire of the Twins got six first-place votes. Joe Girardi of the Yankees, Don Wakamatsu of the Mariners and Ron Washington of the Rangers all got at least one first-place vote, and no manager was named on all 28 ballots (first, second or third place).

This is Scioscia's second Manager of the Year award. He also won in 2002 as the Angels won the World Series.

This year was different. The Angels lost starters John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar and Ervin Santana in spring training, and then on April 9, Adenhart was killed in a car crash.

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Scioscia was forced to use 14 different starting pitchers and 12 rookie pitchers. Stars Vladimir Guerrero and Torii Hunter also had to spend time in on the disabled list. And after the games of June 12, the Angels were 4 1/2 games out of first with a 30-29 record.

How They Voted
Voting for 2009 AL Manager of the Year Award (5 points for a first-place vote, 3 for second, 1 for third):
Manager, Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
Scioscia, Angels	15	10	1	106
Gardenhire, Min.	6	12	6	72
Girardi, Yankees	4	3	5	34
Wakamatsu, Sea.	2	2	3	19
Washington, Tex.	1	1	11	19
Leyland, Det.			2	2

But they went 67-36 from then on, including a 19-7 record in July. Scioscia now gets some credit for that.

"He's our leader," Hunter said. "We see him, and he's OK, so we just go play hard, no matter what."

In September, Scioscia said it was just a matter of staying the course.

"At no point did we think that we weren't going to have a team that was championship caliber," Scioscia said. "We had a lot of confidence that we'd play at a high level, and as the summer went on, we did."

Voting was conducted before the postseason, during which the Angels swept the Red Sox in the Division Series but lost to the Yankees in six games in the ALCS.

Scioscia, the longest-tenured manager in the AL, is the first manager to reach the playoffs in six of his first 10 seasons as a big-league manager.

Gardenhire has finished second in the voting five times, a record for an AL manager.