Infielder Eduardo Escobar of the Minnesota Twins has been named the American League Player of the Week presented by W.B. Mason for the period ending June 10th.
Escobar batted .462 (12-for-26) with two runs scored, 12 hits, six doubles, a triple, two home runs and eight RBI across seven games played to earn his first career Player of the Week Award. Among qualified AL leaders, Eduardo finished the period first in hits, extra-base hits (9), doubles, total bases (26) and slugging percentage (1.000); tied for first in triples and RBI; second in batting average; and tied for fourth in on-base percentage. This is Minnesota's first weekly award of the 2018 season, and the first since Eduardo's teammate Byron Buxton last season for the period ending August 27th.
In a doubleheader on Tuesday against the Chicago White Sox at Target Field, Escobar went 5-for-8 with three doubles, a home run and five RBI across the pair of games. In game one of the twin bill, Escobar, who was traded by the White Sox to the Twins for Francisco Liriano in 2012, clubbed the go-ahead three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning to propel the Twins to a 4-2 victory. In Minnesota's contest on Wednesday, the 29-year-old notched his 24th double on the season, capping a streak of four straight games in which he logged at least one double. The Venezuelan native matched his personal-best streak of four such games (also June 17-21, 2017), and became the first Twins player to accomplish the feat since his All-Star teammate Joe Mauer last season (August 30th - September 2nd). In the final game of his award-winning week on Sunday against the Los Angeles Angels, the switch-hitting slugger notched his fifth multi-hit game of the week, registering a pair of doubles and one RBI. With his 26th two-bagger and 39th extra-base hit on the season, Escobar enters play today first in doubles and tied for first in extra-base hits (also Cleveland's José Ramírez) across the Majors. Led in large part by their versatile infielder, the Twins have gone 6-4 in their previous 10 contests and trail the Indians by 5.5 games in the AL Central.
Other noteworthy performances last week included All-Star second baseman Jose Altuve (.478, 6 R, 11 H, 5 RBI) of the Houston Astros; All-Star starting pitcher Corey Kluber (2-0, 1.80 ERA, 15.0 IP, 15 SO) of the Indians; third baseman Miguel Andújar (.435, 3 2B, 2 HR, 7 RBI) of the New York Yankees; starter Andrew Heaney (1-0, 0.00 ERA, 1 CG SHO, 4 SO) of the Angels; starter Reynaldo López (1-0, 0.68 ERA, 13.1 IP, 10 SO) of the White Sox; and outfielder Khris Davis (.304, 6 R, 4 HR, 6 RBI) of the Oakland Athletics.
In recognition of his American League Player of the Week Award, Eduardo Escobar will be awarded a watch courtesy of Rockwell.