Rays game MVP recap: week 6 & 7

Okay so over the last 2 weeks we’ve had 7 wins, which means we had 7 game balls to vote on. If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the games, you probably already know how this is gonna go down, but let’s go through the motions anyway.

The Polls

Chris Archer pitched out of his mind on May 10th and this one ended up being a no-brainer. Winning, surprisingly, only his 2nd game ball of the year so far, Archer is really showing us the first half of last year was a fluke and he’s back to being Good Archer on most nights.

Now we have our first tie. The DRB writers helped me decide what to do in this situation and we are going to go with a half ball each. That puts Evan Longoria on the board with his first game ball, but it’s actually only part of one. I think he’ll get the hide and stitching, because he probably ripped it off of the ball he sent into the stands in this game. Colome gets the core for his save in a high leverage situation.

Cue the Corey Dickerson mashing. A 4-6 performance with multiple extra base hits is going to win the poll most nights. What’s interesting about this one though is that even though the team scored 11 runs that night, Dickerson didn’t drive in any of those, despite contributing a triple, double and two singles. To make it even odder, the players that hit ahead of him in the lineup were getting on base plenty throughout the night as well. Baseball is funny sometimes.

So after going 4-6 with a triple and a double, he follows that performance up with 2 home runs in a single game. Those were #7 and #8 on the year.

Have you submitted your All Star Game ballot yet? Here it is. Dickerson is on it. Vote for him. He’s good. HR #9.

Evan Longoria snuck in and stole a game ball in between all the Corey Dickerson madness. A 4 hit night will usually do that. Evan said he was due. I think he really needed this performance. The home runs are there, but the gap power seems to be missing. When he starts driving the ball into the gaps this offense is going to get even better.

Aaaaand Dingerson again. Another 2 home run night. #10 and #11. No big deal for him anymore. He’s on pace for something like a 40 HR season.

The Results

Longo finally got on the board but it’s been the Corey Dickerson show for the last two weeks as he picked up his first game ball along with three more to shoot up to the top of the leaderboard.

1. Corey Dickerson - 4
2. Austin Pruitt - 3
3. Alex Cobb - 2
4. Logan Morrison - 2
5. Jake Odorizzi - 2
6. Steven Souza Jr. - 2
7. Matt Andriese - 1
8. Chris Archer - 2
9. Tim Beckham - 1
10. Alex Colome - 1.5
11. Evan Longoria - 1.5
12. Mallex Smith - 1

The only every day player left without a game ball now is Kevin Kiermaier. Maybe this will be his week.

Thanks again to everyone that voted. If you want to get involved, hop on twitter, follow @draysbay and look for polls after every Rays win.