Felix Hernandez just completed a conference call with reporters after his Cy Young Award victory. Naturally, he was overjoyed beyond words.
“I don’t have any words to explain how I feel,” he said from his home in Venezuela. “When I heard I had won the Cy Young, I asked one more time. ‘I won the Cy Young?’ They said ‘yes.’ I started crying. There was a lot of joy around the house. It was a great, great, great, amazing thing.”
And, naturally, Hernandez was asked multiple times in multiple ways whether he believed finishing the season with only 13 wins made him a worthy winner.
“For me, the Cy Young has got to be for the most dominant pitcher in the league, not for the ones who won 21 games or 19 games,” he said. “Look at last year. I had great numbers last year and I didn’t get it.”
Hernandez admitted he was disappointed not to win in 2009 despite winning 19 games and posting a 2.49 earned run average. The Royals’ Zack Greinke won with a 16-8 record and a 2.16 ERA.
A few other snippets from Felix a few minutes ago:
• Any worry that voters would look at victories and not vote for you? “I was worried a little bit. But my whole family said, ‘You’re going to get it.’”
• How much importance to you place on victories? “It’s important for every pitcher. But you know, it’s not in your hands.”
• Are pitching victories a good measure of how good a starter is? “It’s not only the wins. The whole stats have got to be looked at – strikeouts, ERA, innings pitched, opponents average. They’ve all got to be important.”
• How do you improve for next year? “I have to do the same thing I did this year and the year before. There’s nothing you can do better than that. If you can have an ERA of 1.00, that would be better. I’ve got to be the same guy I was my whole career.”
• How much would it mean to have a winning season? “I would love to make the playoffs in Seattle. The fans need it, we all need it. It’s too early to say what we’re going to do. We’ll see what happens in the next couple of weeks.”
• How much pressure did you pitch under considering the lack of run support? “My mind was clear. Every time I jumped that line, my mind was like, ‘You’ve got to give the team a chance to win.’ They were trying so hard and I knew it. I could see it in their faces. They were working hard to score runs. But that’s baseball. We’ve got to get better for next year and see what happens.”
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