Baltimore Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop has been named the American League Player of the Week for the period ending July 23rd. The announcement was made earlier today on MLB Network.
Schoop batted .433 (13-for-30) with eight runs scored, two doubles, three home runs and 16 RBI over seven games played to earn his first career AL Player of the Week Award. Among AL leaders, Jonathan finished the period first in RBI; tied for first in hits, home runs and total bases (24); second in runs scored; tied for third in extra-base hits (5); and fourth in slugging percentage (.800). This is Baltimore's first weekly award of the season, and the first since Schoop's teammate Chris Davis took home weekly honors last season on June 13th.
On Friday night against the Houston Astros at Camden Yards, the 25-year-old recorded his 20th home run on the season, reaching the 20-homer plateau for the second consecutive season.   During his breakout campaign in 2016, Schoop played in all 162 games, tallying 38 doubles, 25 home runs and 82 RBI. Schoop, who earned the first All-Star appearance of his career this season, blasted home runs in three consecutive games from July 20th-22nd, accomplishing the feat for the first time this season, and the second time in his career (also September 2-4, 2014). Having recorded an RBI in seven consecutive contests during his award-winning week, the Curaçao native enters play today tied for the third-longest streak in the Majors this season for consecutive games with an RBI (also Miami's Christian Yelich: April 13th-19th). Gerardo Parra of the Colorado Rockies (July 7th-18th) and Marwin Gonzalez of the Houston Astros (July 2nd-14th) each produced streaks of eight such games to hold the current mark. In addition, Schoop logged multi-RBI efforts in five consecutive games from July 18th-22nd, matching Arizona's Paul Goldschmidt (April 21st-26th) and Colorado's Charlie Blackmon (April 21st-25th) for the longest multi-RBI streak in the Majors this season. Entering play today, Schoop paces all AL second basemen with 21 round-trippers and 70 RBI. Prior to the 2017 campaign, Schoop, who became the 14th player to reach the Majors from Curaçao when he debuted in 2013, played for the Kingdom of the Netherlands during the 2017 World Baseball Classic, helping the team to its second consecutive trip to the Championship Round.
Jonathan's teammate Adam Jones (.419, 11 R, 3 HR, 10 RBI) also produced a strong week for the Orioles. With his 1,548th hit as an Oriole on Sunday afternoon against Houston, the 12-year-veteran moved into sole possession of sixth place on the Orioles' all-time hit list. Other noteworthy performances last week included All-Star first baseman Justin Smoak (.417, 5 R, 5 XBH, 6 RBI) and starting pitcher Marcus Stroman (14.1 IP, 0.63 ERA, 12 SO) of the Toronto Blue Jays; shortstop Didi Gregorius (.462, 4 R, 12 H, 4 XBH) of the New York Yankees; and All-Star second baseman Jose Altuve (.464, 13 H, 5 RBI, 2 SB) of the Astros.
In recognition of his American League Player of the Week Award, Jonathan Schoop will be awarded a watch courtesy of Rockwell.