{"id":400,"date":"2016-09-13T19:17:50","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T23:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=400"},"modified":"2016-09-13T19:17:50","modified_gmt":"2016-09-13T23:17:50","slug":"morales-kang-al-nl-player-week-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2016\/09\/13\/morales-kang-al-nl-player-week-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Morales, Kang Capture Player of the Week Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Major League Baseball<\/strong> announced on Monday that Kansas City Royals<\/strong> designated hitter Kendrys Morales<\/a><\/strong> won AL Player of the Week for the week of September 5.\u00a0Pittsburgh Pirates<\/strong> third-baseman Jung Ho Kang<\/a><\/strong> took home the NL honors.<\/p>\n

Morales, Kang Capture Player of the Week Awards<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Morales, who has been fantastic in the second half after a dreadful start to 2016, hit .409\/.500\/.1091 with five homers and 14 RBI. He hit two home runs on September 6 against the Minnesota Twins<\/strong>. This is Morales’ second player of the week award. He also won it for the week of July 3.<\/p>\n

Despite not hitting at all through the first two months of the season, his second-half performance has his season slash line up to .259\/.327\/.464, to go along with his 27 homers and 79 RBI. The Royals may\u00a0extend Morales a qualifying offer after the season, when he will become a free agent. Although the QO figure is expected to be nearly $17 million this year, Morales has been the Royals main source of power, and Kansas City just might be desperate enough to make that one-year commitment. Most of their best players are free agents after 2017, so the need to win now may incentivize them to overpay.<\/p>\n

Kang took home the award for the Pirates after hitting .522\/.593\/.1087 with four homers and 10 RBI last week. He also hit two homers last Tuesday, his coming against the Cardinals in a loss in his first game back from injury.<\/p>\n

He had been on the DL since mid August with a shoulder injury.<\/p>\n

Kang’s return was a welcome stroke of good news for the Pirates, who have been struggling lately.<\/p>\n

With Monday night’s loss, Pitsburgh fell to four games below .500. This dropped them to six games back of the NL Wild Card race, just a day after they were officially eliminated from NL Central contention. With the Chicago Cubs<\/strong> and St. Louis Cardinals<\/strong> both having superior seasons, and with the news that the Pirates will now be shutting down ace Gerrit Cole<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0for the season, Pitsburgh may turn their focus to 2017.<\/p>\n

Which of the following was the best moment of the first half:<\/a> in LastWordOnSports’s Hangs<\/a> on LockerDome<\/a><\/span>