Major League Baseball has dished out this week’s Player of the Week(POTW) honors to Oakland Athletics outfielder Ramón Laureano and Keston Hiura of the Milwaukee Brewers. The W.B. Mason American and National League Player of the Week players treated fans to two players who receive the honor for the very first time.
Laureano: .542/.577/1.042
@Kestdaddy: .517/.548/.966That will earn you Player of the Week honors.
(MLB x @WBMasonCo) pic.twitter.com/sbXKfijuyN
— MLB (@MLB) July 22, 2019
This is the second Brewers player to receive the honor, next to outfielder Christian Yelich. On Laureano’s side of things, he joins Mike Fiers and Marcus Semien as the third Athletics player to receive the POTW award.
Taking a deeper look at the two POTW winners, Laureano has managed a .284/.334/.518 slash with 20 home runs and 53 RBI, not to mention his gold-glove caliber defense. In the last week, however, Laureano really turned it on posting a .542/.577/1.042 slash line with 2 home runs and also managing to net 6 doubles in six games. Laureano has been impressive in his first full campaign with the Athletics and this past week was a great help for the Athletics lineup.
Hiura has been trying to prove himself at the big league level after finally getting his chance to do so this season. In the last week, Hiura has posted a .517/.548/.966 slash line with 1 home run. He also had 2 triples and 6 doubles in seven games for the Brewers. On the season, Hiura has a .331/.387/.613 slash line with 9 home runs and 23 RBI through 142 at-bats. With a stacked infield, Hiura was subject to the same treatment as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. who was kept in the minor leagues to manipulate service time. Things may have been different if the Brewers infield was not full, Hiura may have had the chance to make the opening day roster like New York Mets rising star Pete Alonso.
