AMARILLO, TX (May 5, 2026) – Minor League Baseball today announced that Amarillo Sod Poodles infielder Manuel Pena has been named the Texas League Player of the Month for April. A historic opening to the year included a power surge not seen before by an Amarillo batter as the 22-year old took home his second piece of Texas League hardware this season.
Over 23 games to begin the year, Pena slashed .298/.324/.644/.968 with 20 runs scored, nine doubles, nine home runs, and 21 RBI. His nine homers for April are the most any player in Sod Poodles history has slugged in a single calendar month. With data available as far back as the 2005 season, Pena is only the fourth player in the Texas League to collect 9+ doubles and 9+ home runs in a single calendar month and the first to do so since J.D. Davis accomplished the feat for Corpus Christi in May 2016.
Among Texas League batters for the month, the Dominican Republic native ranked 1st in home runs (9), slugging (.644), and extra-base hits (18) while also ranking in RBI (t-2nd, 21), hits (t-2nd, 31), doubles (3rd, 9), and runs (5th, 20). His 67 total bases for the month led all of Minor League Baseball. His April was highlighted by a five game stretch from April 11-16 where he went deep in five straight games, becoming the first Soddie ever to do so.
He posted the second-longest hitting streak to date among Sod Poodles this season with a knock in eight consecutive games from April 11-19. Over that stretch, he batted .500 (18x36) with 11 XBH and a 1.653 OPS while posting five multi-hit efforts. During the streak, he posted a career day at the plate with only the fifth five-hit game in franchise history. It was also only the seventh instance in club history where a player collected three doubles in a single contest. Pena is the only Soddie to have accomplished that feat twice, most recently doing so on September 10 last season against Midland.
His second year in Amarillo, Pena is the latest Sod Poodle recipient of the Texas League Player of the Month award, following Arizona’s top-ranked prospect (MLB Pipeline) Ryan Waldschmidt who took home the honor for August last year. With the announcement this afternoon, a Sod Poodle has taken home at least one monthly award in each of the last five seasons.
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