Week two of baseball is officially in the books as of two days ago. Lots of surprises this year including David Ortiz trailing baseball in WPA, WPA/LI, and BRAA. He’s dead last, by a lot. Maybe he’ll land himself a not so coveted Worst of the Week award.

Batter of the Week:

Travis Buck takes top honors this week with .806 wins. His biggest hit of the week was on April 10th where he hit a 2 run double in the top of the 9th worth .391 wins. He hit 6 doubles and 1 triple the entire week and while he may not have hit any home runs or had the best OPS, his consistent hitting was definitely the most timely.

Pitcher of the Week:

Matt Capps narrowly beat out Wandy Rodriguez with .84 wins to become the pitcher with the highest WPA of the week. Capps threw five scoreless innings including two that were very high leverage extra innings.

Worst of the Week:

Joe Borowski’s -0.897 wins was by far the worst of any player. David Ortiz as the worst batter gave him a run for his money with -.565 wins, but Borowski giving up a walk-off grand slam to Torii Hunter was really something special. The way things are going, Borowski could win this award next week too!

The Biggest Hit:

.712 wins - Travis Hafner hit the biggest home run of the season off of Justin Speier with 2 outs, in the top of the 9th, and a man on first to put his team up 4-3. Jake Westbrook closed out the game for the win and his first complete game of the year.

The Biggest Out:

-.347 wins - With the A’s up by 1 and a man on 1st and 2nd in the bottom of the 13th inning, Keith Foulke induced a game ending double play ball hit by Aaron Hill. The Leverage Index in that situation was an extremely high 7.16 and it was the biggest out of the season thus far.

Every week, probably on Monday nights, we’ll be recounting the past week’s top players in terms of WPA and a number of the top plays of the week. I’ll also include whatever else I feel like recapping. Onto the Awards!

Batter of the Week:

Kosuke Fukudome led all players with .95 wins. He’s batting .421 on the season with a 1.279 OPS and couldn’t be off to a better start. His biggest play of the week was on opening day when he hit a three-run home run off Eric Gagne in the bottom of the 9th to tie the game.

Pitcher of the Week:

Felix Hernandez threw 15 shutout innings to start the season but failed to pick up a win. He struck out 9 and walked 5 in his two starts. He almost bested Fukudome’s WPA total with .92 wins.

Worst of the Week:

Brandon Lyon blew two saves this week giving him a WPA of -1.09 wins. Two of the six most valuable WPA plays were off of Lyon. He’s currently allowed 6 hits, 2 home runs, and 4 earned runs in 3 innings of work.

The 3 Biggest Hits:

#1: (.667 wins) - You guessed it, Edwin Encarnacion’s walk-off, three-run, home run takes top honors this week. We covered it when it happened and even have the great video of Jeff Brantley saying how “not clutch” Encarnacion is right before he knocks the ball out of the park. Classic.

#2: (.630 wins) - Josh Hamilton’s two-run, home run off of closer J.J. Putz put the Rangers up 5-4 and denied Felix Hernandez his first win of the season.

#3: (.550 wins) - Mark Reynold hit a two-run, home run off of Rockies closer Matt Corpas, which put the Diamondbacks in the lead 2-1. Brandon Lyon managed to blow the save opportunity, but the Diamondbacks eventually went on to win the game 5-2.

The 3 Biggest Outs:

#1: (-.288 wins) - On opening day, Rafael Betancourt got Jim Thome to ground into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded and the game tied in the bottom of the 8th. His team, the White Sox, went on to lose to the Indians 10-8.

#2: (-.253 wins) - With the a runner on third and one out, Joakim Soria struck out Edgar Renteria in the bottom of the 9th. Soria’s team, the Royals, were up 5-4 against the Tigers and won the game on the very next play. This was just the start of the Tigers’ current six game losing streak.

#3: (-.221 wins) - In a game where the Twins grounded into 4 double plays, Joe Mauer’s game ending double play with a runner on 1st with one out was the most costly.