J-Rod, Eddie Rosario earn Player of the Week honors

Angels' rare 6-4-3-2 triple play named Play of the Week

August 21st, 2023

Last week, Mariners outfielder had a week for the ages while the Braves’ had one of the best weeks of his career, highlighted by a clutch go-ahead home run on Saturday. Those performances helped them earn Players of the Week presented by Chevrolet in the American and National League, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Angels garnered Play of the Week honors thanks to their miraculous 6-4-3-2 triple play against the Rays on Friday night.

Rodríguez put together one of the best weeks in recent memory by going 21-for-37 (.568) across seven games. Seventeen of those hits came across the Mariners’ games on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which broke the AL/NL record for most hits in a four-game span, surpassing the previous record of 16 hits by Milt Stock of the Brooklyn Robins in 1925.

Along with tallying the 21 hits (which included two home runs and four doubles), Rodríguez also stole six bases and scored seven runs. He finished the week with an OPS of 1.417, and missed tying the AL/NL record of 19 hits in a five-game span by one. His 18 hits over a five-game span are tied for second since at least 1901. This is Rodríguez’s third career Player of the Week win, and his second this year.

On the other side of the country, Rosario had a week that was reminiscent of his electric performance in the 2021 NL Championship Series by going 11-for-21 (.524) with three home runs and 10 RBIs.

Rosario's signature moment in that span came on Saturday when the 31-year-old went 4-for-4 against San Francisco with a go-ahead, two-out, two-run home run in the eighth inning off Giants submariner Tyler Rogers. He also walked three times and scored six runs during a week in which he raised his batting average 16 points to .260. This is Rosario’s second career Player of the Week honor; he last won in 2017.

The Angels pulled off what might be the play of the year on Friday when they kept the Rays from scoring the go-ahead run in the ninth inning with the aforementioned 6-4-3-2 triple play. With runners on first and third and no one out in a 6-6 game, Angels closer Carlos Estévez induced a ground ball to shortstop Luis Rengifo, who flipped to Brandon Drury at second base for the force. Drury then fired the ball to debuting rookie Nolan Schanuel at first base for the second out, who then threw home to catcher Logan O’Hoppe, nabbing Yandy Díaz and completing the seventh triple play in Angels history.

It was the first 6-4-3-2 triple play in the Majors in more than a half-century, since 1971, according to the triple play database maintained by the Society for American Baseball Research.