Boston Red Sox center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury fell short in the American League MVP race, finishing second to winner Justin Verlander, the Detroit Tigers ace who also won the CY Young.

Verlander received 13 of 28 first-place votes and 280 points in voting announced by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Ellsbury was second with 242 points (4 first-place votes, 13 second-place votes), followed by Toronto right fielder Jose Bautista with 231 points.

A short time after the award was announced, Ellsbury tweeted a thank you to the writers that voted for him and congratulated Verlander.

After missing nearly all of the 2010 season with rib injuries, the 28-year-old Ellsbury had a breakout 2011 in nearly every aspect of the game. He hit .321 with 32 homers, 105 RBIs, 39 stolen bases and 119 runs scored, all career highs. His .928 OPS ranked him in the top 10 in the majors.

He became the first Boston player to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases in a season and led the major leagues with 364 total bases and 83 extra-base hits. He was third in the AL with 212 hits, and tied for third in runs and doubles.

In the field, the speedy Ellsbury did not make an error in 394 chances last season, the only center fielder in the AL and one of just two in the majors who did not make an error while playing at least two-thirds of his team's games.

It stands to reason that voters might have been impacted by the September collapse of the Red Sox, asking themselves how they could vote for a player whose team blew the biggest final-month lead in baseball history. It should be noted, however, that Ellsbury nearly single-handedly tried to reverse that slide.

During Boston's 7-20 September, Ellsbury hit .358 with eight home runs and a 1.067 OPS. Over the final 30 days of the season, his 2.4 WAR was the highest in the AL.

Ellsbury would have become the 12th MVP in Red Sox history, and the first Boston outfielder since Jim Rice in 1978. He would have joined Fred Lynn (1975) and Tris Speaker (1912) as the only Boston center fielders to take home the prize.

Though he didn’t win the MVP, Ellsbury still walks away with an impressive hardware haul this offseason. The center fielder took home a Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger and the Comeback Player of the Year award over the last month or so.

Verlander went 24-5 with a 2.40 ERA and 250 strikeouts to take the AL pitching triple crown. He is the first pitcher to win MVP since Oakland's Dennis Eckerlsley in 1992 and the first starter since Boston's Roger Clemens in 1986. At least one member of the Red Sox took issue with Verlander winning.

“We all know Verlander’s year was pretty incredible with his numbers and he deserves the attention he’s getting,” 2008 AL MVP Dustin Pedroia told ESPNBoston.com. “He had an unbelievable season, but in my opinion, he pitched 34 games and Ells played 158, so I think if a pitcher should win it he should impact, in those 34 games, in an extraordinary amount of the time and he did that, no question. But Ells impacted a lot more than 34 games for our team.

“But that’s why it’s fun for everybody. Everybody can say, ‘pitchers should win it,’ or ‘pitchers shouldn’t win it.’ It’s fun for the fans, it’s fun for the media and it’s fun for everybody. But it’s pretty difficult to see a guy finish second. It kind of stinks.”

Here are the top 10 in the voting, along with their vote totals:



And here's Ellsbury's tweet:



And here's a congratulatory tweet from Carl Crawford: