Boston Red Sox first baseman Hanley Ramirez has been named the American League Player of the Week for the period ending July 24th. The announcement was made earlier today on MLB Network.
Ramirez batted .333 (7-for-21) with six runs scored, five home runs and 12 RBI over six games to claim his third career Player of the Week Award and first in the AL, last winning in the National League with the Florida Marlins on June 28, 2009. Among his AL counterparts, Hanley finished the period first in home runs, RBI and slugging percentage (1.048), tied for first in extra-base hits (5), second in total bases (22) and tied for third in runs scored.
On Wednesday night against the San Francisco Giants at Fenway Park, the right-handed slugger went 3-for-4 with three home runs and six RBI. The three-homer output tied a Red Sox single-game record, a feat accomplished 28 times by 23 different players. Hanley's teammate and 2016 AL All-Star Mookie Betts was the last player to do so, earlier this season on May 31st at Baltimore. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the only other years in which the Red Sox had two three-home run games in the same season were 1957 (both by Hall of Famer Ted Williams) and 1999 (Trot Nixon and Nomar Garciaparra). The three-time NL All-Star set career highs in home runs and RBI in the contest, and became only the seventh player in club history with at least three home runs and six RBI in a game at Fenway Park, joining Williams, Bobby Doerr, Clyde Vollmer, Norm Zauchin, Jack Clark and Garciaparra (twice). Each of Ramirez's three round-trippers came with a runner on base. According to Elias, the last player to hit three homers with at least one man on base in a game was Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers on May 8, 2012 at Baltimore, and the last Red Sox player to accomplish the feat was Hall of Famer Jim Rice on August 29, 1983 at Toronto. Ramirez, a native of the Dominican Republic, finished his award-winning week by going 3-for-7 with two home runs and six RBI over the weekend, establishing a season-high RBI total over any two-game stretch. Boston went 4-2 in the first full week following the 2016 Midsummer Classic and now sits just 1.5 games back of the Baltimore Orioles for the top spot in the competitive AL East.
Other noteworthy performances last week included Hanley's teammate Rick Porcello (2-0, 2.77 ERA, 13.0 IP, 11 SO); Jose Altuve (.560, 14 H, 6 RBI, .593 OBP) and George Springer (.360, 7 R, 3 2B, 7 RBI) of the Houston Astros; Corey Dickerson (.423, 6 R, 11 H, 5 XBH) of the Tampa Bay Rays; Kendall Graveman (2-0, 2.81 ERA, 1 CG, 16.0 IP) and Jake Smolinski (.500, 3 2B, .950 SLG, .565 OBP) of the Oakland Athletics; and Tyler Naquin (.389, 3 2B, 2 HR, 7 RBI) of the Cleveland Indians.
In recognition of his American League Player of the Week Award, Hanley Ramirez will be awarded a watch courtesy of Game Time, the leader in licensed sports watches, available at MLB.com.