Minnesota Twins: Nelson Cruz named first AL Player of the Week

Just three days into the season, the Minnesota Twins have their first player award: Nelson Cruz is the AL Player of the Week.

Well that didn’t take long. Even in an abbreviated season, the Minnesota Twins were still expected to be one of the top teams in the league, in addition to being the American League Central champions. The Twins started their campaign for more accolades with Nelson Cruz taking home the AL Player of the Week award after his torrid start.

Cruz is a really sensible choice here, as he leads the MLB in in hits (7), runs (7), homers (3), RBIs (10), OPS (1.956) and total bases (18). You couldn’t ask for a better start for a guy who was the best home run hitter and one of the best run producers and average hitters for the 2019 Twins.

Cruz put together these stats with an excellent three games against the Chicago White Sox starting with a fantastic first game of the season, going 2-4, scoring twice and walking once, helping the Twins pull away for their first win of the year.

In game two, when the Twins fell apart against the White Sox, Cruz provided the only source of offense with this absolute blast to deep left field:

In a game where the Twins couldn’t get going, Cruz’ homer provided something to watch. His third game was easily his best and the one that locked him in as the player of the week and established him atop all of those MLB leaderboards.

Nelson Cruz went 4-5, hitting two doubles and two home runs, batting in seven runs and scoring four more. No other player put together a stat line like that in any of the games they played or hit bombs like this:

Cruz is well deserving of the award for his first series of the season, and I (just like the rest of Twins territory) hope that he keeps up the excellent hitting and leads the Twins to their first World Series win since 1991.