Henderson Alvarez of the Miami Marlins named National League Player of the Week

Miami Marlins starting pitcher Henderson Alvarez, who tossed a no-hitter on Sunday afternoon, has been named the National League Player of the Week for the period ending September 29th. The announcement was made earlier today on MLB Network.

In two starts last week, Alvarez led the Majors with 16.0 innings pitched while tossing the third no-hitter of the 2013 championship season in the Marlins' season finale in a 1-0 walk-off victory over Justin Verlander and the visiting Detroit Tigers.

In his last start of the 2013 season, the 23-year-old tossed 9.0 hitless innings, fanning four and walking one with one hit batsman, to blank the Tigers lineup for his fifth win of the season. Alvarez needed just 99 pitches to dispatch the A.L. Central Champions, 66 of which were thrown for strikes. The performance was the fifth no-hitter in franchise history, as Alvarez joined current Tiger Anibal Sanchez (September 6, 2006 vs. Arizona), A.J. Burnett (May 12, 2001 at San Diego), Kevin Brown (June 10, 1997 at San Francisco) and Al Leiter (May 11, 1996 vs. Colorado). Alvarez became the first pitcher in Major League history to earn a no-hitter after a walk-off wild pitch when Marlins outfielder Giancarlo Stanton scored the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it marked just the fourth walk-off no-hitter (not counting combined no-hitters) in the modern era and the first since Virgil Trucks no-hit the Washington Senators as a member of the Detroit Tigers on May 15, 1952. Alvarez became the first pitcher to toss a no-no in the final game of a regular season since California's Mike Witt threw a no-hitter against Texas in 1984. The performance capped a week in which Alvarez posted a combined 1.13 ERA with a 1-1 record in two starts. The Carabobo, Venezuela native was pegged with the loss on September 24th despite allowing just two runs in 7.0 innings of work against the Philadelphia Phillies. This is the first career Player of the Week Award for Alvarez, who was acquired from Toronto as part of the deal that sent Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson and Jose Reyes to the Blue Jays.

Other noteworthy performances last week included San Francisco's Tony Abreu (.400, 10 H, HR, 5 RBI, .760 SLG, .400 OBP); San Diego's Chris Denorfia (.433, 10 R, 13 H, HR, 4 RBI, .667 SLG, .500 OBP), Jedd Gyorko (.241, 3 HR, 10 RBI, .586 SLG) and Tommy Medica (.407, 11 HR, HR, 4 RBI, .556 SLG, .484 OBP); Atlanta's Freddie Freeman (.474, 4 R, 9 H, 4 RBI, .526 SLG, .500 OBP); and Milwaukee's Carlos Gomez (.333, 3 HR, 4 RBI, .762 SLG, .391 OBP) and Kyle Lohse (1-0, 0.00 ERA, SHO, 5 SO, 9.0 IP);

In recognition of his National League Player of the Week Award, Henderson Alvarez will be awarded a watch courtesy of Game Time, the leader in licensed sports watches, available at MLB.com.