The 2021 MLB Highlights continue to roll in as we have our latest Player of the Week announcements in Major League Baseball. This week we see two players nominated from the National League, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Madison Bumgarner while Texas Ranger Adolis García got the nod in the American League.
2021 MLB Highlights: Tatis Jr. and Bumgarner
Fernando Tatis Jr. had a monster week last week for the San Diego Padres who squared off against their National League West rival the Los Angeles Dodgers taking three out of four games in that series.
Tatis Jr was instrumental in those wins and he batted .385 overall with five home runs, four stolen bases, seven RBIs, and nine runs scored in seven games over the week. He hit all five of those homers in three games against the Dodgers, including back-to-back two-home-run games off Clayton Kershaw and Trevor Bauer, making him the first player in MLB history to homer multiple times in consecutive games against former Cy Young Award winners.
It’s purely coincidence that the first of Tatis’ multi-homer games even came on the 22nd anniversary of the day his father, Fernando Tatis, hit two grand slams in one inning at Dodger Stadium.
The Padres received a scare earlier in April when he was forced to leave a game in obvious pain and Tatis Jr. was subsequently put on the 10-day injured list. The injury was in his left shoulder with partial tearing of the labrum. The possibility of surgery was circulated but Tatis Jr. did return to the lineup without it.
Madison Bumgarner threw a complete-game victory in the second game of a seven-inning doubleheader against the Atlanta Braves without allowing a single hit. He struck out seven in the game. There is some controversy around the no-hitter since it occurred in a seven-inning game that was mandated by the MLB to speed up the game.
Bumgarner himself had never thrown a no-hitter both in his time with the San Francisco Giants and now the Arizona Diamondbacks. His career resume reads like a 2021 MLB Highlights reel as he has won three World Series championships and two Silver Slugger Awards. He has also been selected to four National League All-Star teams and has the most strikeouts in franchise history by a Giants left-handed pitcher.
Adolis Garcia Shines
The 2021 MLB Highlights for the American League came from Adolis Garcia who hit .333 and slugged .875 for the week with four home runs and nine RBIs.
Garcia defected from Cuba in 2016 after playing in Japan in 2015 and for Cuba at the Pan American Games in 2015. He had originally been with the St. Louis Cardinals organization from 2017 through 2019. After being designated for assignment, he became the property of the Texas Rangers on December 21, 2019, but saw limited time in 2020 with the 60 game season. He logged only seven big league plate appearances.
A Non-Roster invitee in 2021, injuries allowed him to get on the Rangers playing roster. He has made an impact in the short time he has been in the lineup so far. nine games total won’t make a baseball career but if he keeps up this kind of pace we may see him be in the 2021 MLB Highlights again in 2021.
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