You know what they say: You have to be the Player of the Week before you can be Player of the Month.
Or maybe you don't, but José Abreu knocked out both regardless. After winning the American League's weekly honor for his body of work from Aug. 17-23, Major League Baseball announced that Abreu took home the award for the July/August portion of the season.
Abreu was all over the leaderboards for the month, with finishes the following categories:
- Home runs: 12 (second)
- RBIs: 32 (second)
- Slugging percentage: .664 (second)
- Batting average: .321 (third)
- wOBA: .426 (third)
- Runs: 23 (seventh)
He also finished sixth in FanGraphs' WAR valuation at 1.4, and of the players above him, only Nelson Cruz has a more thorough body of work at the plate. Cruz, of course, is limited to DH. Abreu is actually playing a good first base.
Alongside Abreu, Luis Robert took home the American League's Rookie of the Month Award for July/August. It's going to be a two-way race between Robert and Seattle's Kyle Lewis for Rookie of the Year, and good luck picking a favorite:
| Robert | Category | Lewis |
|---|---|---|
| 34 | G | 36 |
| 137 | PA | 153 |
| 22 | R | 29 |
| .288 | BA | .328 |
| .338 | OBP | .418 |
| .592 | SLG | .527 |
| 10 | HR | 8 |
| 24 | RBI | 21 |
| 4 | SB | 2 |
| 1.6 | fWAR | 1.6 |
| 2.1 | bWAR | 1.6 |
Lewis' superior plate discipline gives him a better chance at buoying his numbers amid a downturn, but Robert's combination of power and defense makes him more likely to capture the imagination while producing.
* * * * * * * * *
There's an ulterior motive to this post -- I basically wanted to highlight the article about Carl Skanberg's sketched scorecards on MLB.com, which drew national attention when Lucas Giolito did the same for his no-hitter.
As the players celebrated on the field and fans partied at home, it was time for Carl Skanberg to get to work.
Skanberg is a lifelong White Sox fan who has a long history of covering the team's exploits through his comics work. After losing his job right before the pandemic hit, the veteran cartoonist decided to devote his summer to his favorite team full-time: creating custom sketchbook scorecards for each White Sox game with a fun, nostalgia-tinged cover and full game comic to go along with the play-by-play.
Giolito’s masterful moment was precisely what he was hoping for.
And here's what that looked like:
(Jose Abreu portrait by Carl Skanberg, of course)
