Week 8: Ervin Santana

Ervin Santana became the clear front runner in the race to become my MLBoyfriend early in the week. On Tuesday, May 23, Minnesota's ace pitcher threw a great game against the Baltimore.

That night, Santana pitched nine full innings which in and of itself is a rare feat these days. He struck out six batters, gave up just two hits and two walks which resulted in an excellent 0.44 WHIP. His ERA was even more impressive ERA of 0.00 in a complete shut out of the Orioles. He obviously earned both a win and quality start for the game.

While this game was the Santana's best of 2017 so far, it certainly wasn't a fluke. He has had a great to the season. Over the course of 70.0 innings pitched, he has had an impressive ERA of 1.80 (currently the best in MLB) and a WHIP of just 0.83--notching up 8 quality starts, 7 wins and just 2 losses. He is the first pitcher to throw two shut outs in 2017. As of today, Santana's Wins Above Replacement stat is 2.7. While I don't fully understand WAR, I believe this means the he is single-handedly responsible for the Twins two game lead in the American League Central standings.

Week 7: J.D. Martinez

UPDATE 3/26/19: I wrote this before J.D. Martinez posted something very problematic on social media that is in direct opposition to my values. He has a right to express political opinions, but words have consequences. In this case the consequence is that I no longer think he's hot--in fact, he's the opposite of hot. NRA propaganda is deal breaker for me.

I am in transit today. In fact, I am posting this from O'Hare Airport, so I'm going to keep this post short, sweet, and link-free. Here's why Detroit Tiger J.D. Martinez is my MLBoyfriend of the week:

--He had a .438 batting average for the week with a 1.854 OPS.

--He hit four home runs.

--He had seven runs and nine RBIs.

--He's ever so dreamy.

Week 6: Buster Posey

Buster Posey is no stranger to this blog. He was my Week 8 MLBoyfriend last year and made several appearances in special posts in 2016. So, Posey always on my radar--and last week he pinged loudly.

Buster has been surging at the plate. Last week, he had an impressive .429 batting average and 1.568 OPS with 5 RBIs, 8 runs, only one strikeout, and 4 home runs. 

The most newsworthy of those home runs was this walk-off dinger against Cincinnati in the 17th inning. That's right, the Giants and the Reds almost played two complete baseball games Friday night/early Saturday morning.

Week 5: Ryan Zimmerman

Always a bridesmaid never a bride no longer. After four weeks of being the runner up for my MLBoyfriend, Ryan Zimmerman has finally sealed the deal.

Zimmerman has been on fire at the plate the whole first month of play. He was named the National League Player of the Month for April. The Washington Post explains why:

The 32-year-old Zimmerman was a predictable choice after leading baseball in batting average (.420), slugging (.886), OPS (1.345), hits (37) and extra-base hits (19) for the month. He also tied for first with 11 home runs and was tied for second with 12 multi-hit games. To top it off, his league-leading 29 RBI set the Nationals record for RBI in a calendar month.

Still, every week in April, someone else managed to find a way into my heart.

Week 5 MLBoyfriend, Ryan Zimmerman,
with Week 4 winner, teammate Bryce Harper.

Some have argued that Zimmerman's poor defense this season--he has already made four errors--lowers his value to the Washington Nationals.

That, however, is the minority opinion. Headlines like "RYAN ZIMMERMAN IS THE BEST PLAYER OF THE 2017 SEASON SO FAR AND IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE" are much more common.

Week 4: Gift Ngoepe

"Whatever you do... just don't cry." 

Gift Ngoepe made history on Wednesday, April 26th, when he became the first ever African-born player in Major League Baseball. To make my new MLBoyfriend's debut even better, Ngoepe got a hit on his first at bat.



Pittsburgh called up Ngoepe hoping his fielding prowess to help their struggling defense. The Pirates got a bonus of some decent offense from Gift in his two games. In addition to his hit in his first game, he drew a walk. Then in his first start on Friday, April 28th, Ngoepe went 3 for 3 with a triple, two walks and two runs in the Pirates 12-2 win over the Miami Marlins.

Even though Ngoepe literally grew up in a baseball park--his mother worked for a recreation-league team in Randburg, South Africa, and his family lived in a room attached to the clubhouse--it's amazing that he set his sites on playing in the Major Leagues at a young age. He told the Pittburgh Gazette:

It’s a dream come true for me. It’s something I always wanted as a little kid. I told someone when I was 10 or 12 years old I was going to make it to the big leagues. That day has come.

Baseball is more popular in South Africa than most of the rest of Africa, but it's a pretty minor sport there. Still, it's amazing that the MLB which draws players from around the world has never had a player from a continent of 1.216 billion people.

Week 3: Bryce Harper

There are many reasons Bryce Harper won the title of my MLBoyfriend in the third week of play. Three of them are home runs. On Wednesday, April 19, he hit two against Atlanta's ace pitcher Julio Teheran. The second of those was a grand slam. Then, on Friday, April 21, Harper hit a dinger off a pitch by Matt Harvey of the Mets--a pitcher Harper had had 30 at bats against with only hit and zero home runs to show for it.

It wasn't just home runs. Harper was hitting everything last week. His batting average was an insane .550 and an OPS of 1.867. He scored ten runs, the most of any player last week, and had seven RBIs. Of course the center piece of this week was the aforementioned two-home-run game against Atlanta. Harper went four for four in that game making it possibly the best game of his career. (He also played some very good defense in that game.) Being Bryce Harper, he also managed to look pretty good doing all that base running.

Of course, no Bryce Harper post would be complete without a picture of one of his famous celebratory hair flips. Fortunately, there's an excellent one from last week.

Week 2: James Paxton

Given the number of outstanding pitching performances last week, it was clear a pitcher would be named my #MLBoyfriend today. There were a number of excellent candidates with not just one but two wins in the last seven days: Wily Peralta of Milwaukee Brewers is now 3-0 for the season after getting two wins last week; Colorado Rockies' rookie Antonio Senzatela's second win completed a sweep of the San Francisco Giants; Detroit Tiger Matthew Boyd gave up only one earned run in twelve innings over two outings; and Michael Pineda of the New York Yankees is finally "starting to realize his potential" with two impressive wins. Above all these great aces, one stood out, so...

Congratulations to James Paxton of the Seattle Mariners. You are my new MLBoyfriend.

On Monday, April 10th, Paxton dominated the Houston Astros in the Mariners' home opener. He went seven innings throwing eight strikeouts and giving up just four hits, two walks and no runs.

Then, on Saturday, April 15th, Paxton had an even more impressive outing against the Texas Rangers. He pitched eight full innings with nine strikeouts, and just two hits and one walk. Again he gave up no runs.

That's right, over fifteen innings in the second week of play, James Paxton had two quality starts, two wins, a phenomenally low WHIP of 0.60, and a 0.00 ERA--it doesn't get much better than that. Oh wait it does get better, because if we count Paxton's outing in the first week of play, his ERA is still 0.00. He's thrown three shut-outs in his first three appearances of the season.