The end of the 2010 MLB season is mere days away as I write this.  The good teams are preparing themselves for the playoffs while the not so good teams are preparing themselves for a long off-season.

With only a couple of regular season games left to be played, the stats for all the players are pretty much where they will end up.  Since the end of the season is here, it is now time for me to release my official picks for the Cy Young and MVP awards.

Now that all of the top prospects have been called up and teams can now enjoy their services for an extra year because of the Super 2 rule, the Rookie of the Year race has officially started. Guys like Mike Stanton, Jose Tabata, Buster Posey, and Pedro Alvarez will have to get it going quick if they want to have any chance of snagging the award away from our top guys. The pitchers have had there way early but the weather is starting to heat up, and that is an advantage for the hitters.

Last Wednesday night concluded an entertaining, anticipated, and streak filled month of baseball. The month started out with the retirement of one of the all time greats to ever lace them up, Ken Griffey Jr. The 13 time All-Star held a press conference on June 1st to announce that he was walking away from the game after 21 seasons. He finished his career 5th on the all time HR list with 630 and 14th in RBI with 1836. He was a 10 time Gold Glove winner and the AL MVP in 1997. I have seen few players play the game with as much fun and childlike exuberance as the Kid did and, once again, I tip my cap to the future Hall of Famer.

Last week an ‘almost’, this week a ‘done deal.’ Edwin Jackson of the Diamondbacks tossed the 5^th , sorry 4^th, no-hitter of the season Friday night. It was far from a thing of beauty as Jackson walked 8 batters and had to labor through 150 pitches to accomplish the feat. Kudos to Manager AJ Hinch for allowing him a chance at history and ignoring the pitch count, he said he stopped counting after 115. The 8 walks were the 3^rd most allowed in a no-hitter in history, right behind AJ Burnett’s 9 and Jim Maloney’s 10. The 150 pitches were the most since Livan Hernandez threw 150 in 2005.