Welcome to the eleventh week of our ongoing series highlighting the previous weeks best hitting and pitching performances. This week a no-hitter appears again and from a familiar face to boot. In addition to that we highlight a seldom seen milestone a week after highlighting another seldom seen milestone, and again from a familiar face.
BEST HITTER: Alex Rodriguez, 3B/DH, Yankees
Last week, Alex Rodriguez logged his 2,000th RBI on what turned out to be his 666th home run. The jokes write themselves, of course. This week he hit yet another milestone: 3,000 hits. Coincidentally, he also logged this hit via the home run.
Most people either love him or hate him. Personally I’m indifferent. Of course it’s wrong what he did. But I have a hard time separating taking steroids or other PEDs from taking amphetamines which was a rampart part of baseball in the past. And I won’t pretend like he’s the only person to hit major milestones or play baseball at a high level who took an illegal substance. I also have a hard time pretending pre-integration baseball was some golden age since probably some of the best ball players weren’t allowed in MLB.
Regardless of how you feel about Alex Rodriguez or the many phases baseball has gone through, we have to acknowledge A-Rod’s feat. We don’t necessarily have to celebrate. But we should be careful not to sweep it under the rug.
Honorable Mention: Mookie Betts is a tremendous young talent. He’s had a good if somewhat inconsistent year so far, but last week he was on fire. He slashed .581/.594/1.000 (.676 wOBA, 349 wRC+).
MLB Leader:
AVG – Mookie Betts (.581)
OBP – Mookie Betts (.594)
SLG – Justin Turner (1.087)
wOBA – Mookie Betts (.676)
wRC+ – Mookie Betts (349)
HR – Todd Fraizer (5)
SB – 7 players tied (3)
fWAR – Mookie Betts (1.2)
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 20: Starting pitcher Max Scherzer #31 of the Washington Nationals celebrates with catcher Wilson Ramos #40 after throwing a no hitter to defeat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-0 at Nationals Park on June 20, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
BEST PITCHER: Max Scherzer, Nationals
Last week Chris Heston and Max Scherzer both flirted with no-hitters. In fact, Scherzer only missed a perfect game against the Brewers by one cheap bloop hit and a walk. This week he one-upped himself. Facing the Pirates he missed a perfect game by one hit batsman. The hit batsman was Jose Tabata. If you watch the replay it sure does look like Tabata leaned into it. Whether that’s true or not only Tabata knows. It’s a tremendous effort from Scherzer regardless.
Honorable Mention: Chris Sale has unorthodox mechanics for a starting pitcher in it lead to a lot of scouts early in his development to quickly dismiss him as a reliever. He’s a great example of why one shouldn’t do that. He was brilliant yet again last week. He held the Texas Rangers to 2 hits and 0 runs through 8 innings while striking out 14 batters and walking none.
MLB Leaders:
K% – Chris Sale (53.9%)
BB% – 10 players tied (0.0%)
AVG – Max Scherzer (0.000)
WHIP – Max Scherzer (0.00)
ERA – 13 players tied (0.00)
FIP – Chris Sale (-0.40)
xFIP – Chris Sale (-0.05)
fWAR – Chris Sale (0.7)
Statistics courtesy of FanGraphs
