Kyle Hendricks named NL Player of the Week
MLB announced the first Players of the Week for the 2020 season on Monday, which spanned the first four days of the year in this past shortened week. Unsurprisingly to some, the honors for the NL Player of the Week went to Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Kyle Hendricks.
Hendricks earned the nod with his absolutely dominant complete-game shutout on Opening Day against the Milwaukee Brewers, in which he only allowed three base hits over the entire course of the game (all of them to shortstop Orlando Arcia). For him to be that strong and be able to go the distance in the first game of the season after being shut down for three months was an extremely impressive feat, and it’s nice to see him get rewarded for his incredible performance.
This is the second time in his career that Hendricks has been named the NL Player of the Week, with the last time coming back in August of his stellar 2016 campaign (where he finished third in NL Cy Young voting). In the first week of that month he made two starts — one of them also a complete-game shutout — and only allowed one earned run over 16 1/3 innings pitched.
Over in the American League the honors went to Minnesota Twins designated hitter Nelson Cruz. The ageless wonder went 7-for-13 (.538) in his first three games of the new year with 3 HR, 10 RBI, a 1.385 SLG, and an absurdly high 1.956 OPS. That dominating performance against the Chicago White Sox was more than enough to earn himself his seventh career Player of the Week award.
Hendricks is currently scheduled to make his next start on Wednesday 7/29 against the Cincinnati Reds.
Stay tuned to Wrigley Rapport here and on social media for future news and notes as we cover the 2020 campaign.
