You certainly couldn't blame Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner for wanting to follow in the footsteps of fellow infielder and Guardians franchise icon José Ramírez.
On Monday, he did just that, earning his first career Player of the Week Award on the same day that Ramírez earned his team-record ninth.
After getting off to a slow start, Ramírez was back to bashing baseballs again last week, going 8-for-22 (.364) with a double, four homers, five RBIs and five steals. He also walked eight times during the week for an incredible .533 on-base percentage.
Ramírez had most recently won Player of the Week Award on July 14, 2025, to go along with taking the honors once in '24, twice in '22, once apiece in '21 in '18 and twice in '17. He has accounted for six of the last nine times a Guardian player has been named AL Player of the Week.
With his big week at the plate and on the basepaths, Ramírez is just nine long balls and three steals shy of joining Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Andre Dawson, Bobby Bonds, Reggie Sanders, Steve Finley, Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltrán as the ninth player in big league history with at least 300 of each.
A two-time Gold Glove Award winner who finished second in the NL with a .297 batting average last season, Hoerner is off to the best offensive start of his eight-year big league career. In six games last week (five of them Cubs wins), the 28-year-old went 9-for-26 (.346) with two homers, 11 RBIs and two steals to lift his season batting line to .325/.402/.518 with three homers, seven steals and an MLB-high-tying 21 RBIs.
Hoerner is the first Cubs player to take home Player of the Week honors since Seiya Suzuki last Sept. 29, and the fifth Cubs player to win it since the start of the 2025 season.
Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill nabbed the Play of the Week Award with his ridiculous grab to rob Julio Rodríguez of a home run on Wednesday. He later capped off the game with a two-run walk-off double.
This is the first Play of the Week Award for Merrill, and the sixth to be claimed by a Padres player since the award's inception in 2019.