Wade Miley Wins NL Rookie of the Month

Arizona Diamondbacks rookie pitcher Wade Miley has been voted National League Rookie of the Month for the month of April. He led all N.L. rookie pitchers with a 3-0 record and 1.29 ERA, striking out 15 over 21.0 innings of work. The 25-year-old was victorious in his first start of the 2012 campaign on April 23rd at Philadelphia, blanking the defending N.L. East Champions through 6.0 innings of work, with a career-high seven strikeouts in a 9-5 win. This was followed by the left-hander holding the Marlins to one unearned run over 6.1 innings in his second start of the season, with six more strikeouts in an 8-4 Diamondbacks win at Marlins Park.

He also got the win when bailing out Josh Collmenter against the Giants on April 8th, throwing four hitless innings that were crucial in allowing Arizona to come back from six down, to pull out the victory. That was the second-longest hitless bullpen appearance in franchise history, trailing only Max Scherzer's debut, which we mentioned on This Day in Diamondbacks History a little while ago. Selected by Arizona with the 43rd overall pick in the 2008 First-Year Player Draft, Miley now has a 7-2 record with a 3.39 ERA in 61.0 Major League innings dating back to August 20, 2011. This is his first career monthly award.

Other rookies receiving votes were St. Louis Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter (.267, HR, 14 RBI, 8 R, 16 H, 5 2B); New York Mets outfielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis (.325, 2 HR, 8 RBI, 26 H, 11 R, .386 OBP); and Cincinnati Reds shortstop Zack Cozart (.271, HR, 4 RBI, 23 H, 13 R, 7 2B, 2 3B). However, there's little doubt that Miley out-performed them all - and a good thing too, as without him, I'm not sure how the club would have coped with Hudson's stint on the DL and Collmenter's ineffectiveness. The last Arizona playerx to win the award were Daniel Hudson in August 2010 and Gerardo Parra in May 2009.