During the last week of the season, seven of us conducted our voting for various team- and league-wide awards here on Purple Row. This week we will unveil our Rockies awards, starting today with Best Performance of the Year (Defensive Player of the Year Award later today).
This year's winner for Performance of the Year is Ubaldo Jimenez and his no-hitter thrown on 17 April 2010. Here's what Jeff wrote that night on Jimenez's no-hitter:
Ubaldo Jimenez is obviously a member of a superior alien race come to dominate the baseball galaxy. I for one welcome our new overlords.
Jimenez shut down the Atlanta Braves on a windy Saturday night, striking out seven and walking six (all in the first five innings). And oh yeah, no hits allowed. Only the first time that's happened in Rockies history (or by a pitcher with a name starting with U). No big deal or anything. Jimenez went to the stretch for all hitters after the fifth inning and retired every hitter he faced thereafter, throwing a career high 128 pitches in all. And he was throwing 98 on those last few pitches. Ubaldo may be a freak of nature, but he's our freak of nature.
Jimenez entered the national scene that night and became the darling of pitchers for the next few weeks. Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay upstaged him in May by throwing perfect games (and well, Halladay threw that no-hitter in the playoffs recently). Still, the media kept asking how Ubaldo would finish the season. Will he challenge 30 wins? How long can he keep an ERA under one? We know how all that ended. While Jimenez didn't quite reach such lofty heights at the end of the season, he certainly pitched the Rockies away from that exclusive NL club that that Mets and Padres are part of: teams without no-hitters.
Full results after the jump.
Here are the voting results:
| Russ | Jeff | Fish | A-Mart | Bryan | Silverblood | WM |
| No-hitter | No-hitter | No-hitter | No-hitter | No-hitter | No-hitter | No-hitter |
| CarGo Cycle | CarGo cycle | CarGo Cycle | CarGo Cycle | CarGo Cycle | CarGo Cycle | 9-run ninth |
| 9-run ninth | Tulo's 7 RBI | 9-run ninth | Tulo 9/25 | Smith W/O 9th |
9-run ninth | CarGo Cycle |
The final tally:
| No-hitter | 21 |
| CarGo cycle | 13 |
| 9-run 9th | 5 |
| Tulo 7 RBI | 1 |
| Tulo 9/25 | 1 |
| Smith W/O Cards | 1 |
This is the first of three awards we unanimously agreed upon for first place. Greg thought the nine-run ninth eclipsed Carlos Gonzalez's cycle, breaking the unanimity for second place. Troy Tulowitzki received a smattering of support for his efforts.
For more on the Rockies' top performances this past season, you can always read my SB Nation Denver article if you haven't already.