Rick Porcello does not seem to be fazed by Kate Upton’s criticism of the Boston Red Sox pitcher winning the AL Cy Young Award over her fiance, Justin Verlander.
Porcello won the award despite finishing with fewer first-place votes than Verlander (14 vs. 8) largely because he was on 18 second-place ballots, while Verlander was second on just two. Two voters left Verlander off their ballot entirely, which helped Porcello edge out the Tigers ace in overall points 137-132.
Upton was outraged about the outcome and expressed her thoughts in a vulgar manner.
Porcello is too busy drinking wine to worry.
“No. I honestly don’t care,” Porcello told the Boston Herald’s Evan Drellich when asked if he cared about Upton’s reaction. “I’m not the one that made that decision as far as who wins the Cy Young. All I know is I’ve got a lot of people around me right now that I love very much and have been instrumental in my success in getting to this point, and on top of that we’ve got some really good bottles of wine that still need to be drank. There’s not really a concern in my mind.”
Porcello went 22-4 with a 3.15 ERA and 189 strikeouts in 223 innings for the Red Sox. In comparison, Verlander was 16-9 with a 3.04 ERA and 254 strikeouts in 227.2 innings. The pitchers had an equal WAR by Fangraphs’ metrics, while Baseball-Reference’s WAR calculation rated Verlander higher.
The vote seems to show most voters felt Verlander was the best pitcher in the AL, while Porcello was the second-best. What doesn’t seem to compute is why half the voters had Verlander third or worse on their ballots. It seems like some of them did not do their homework.
