Red Sox

Trevor Story earns AL Player of the Week after hot stretch at plate

Story hit six homers in seven days.

Boston Red Sox's Trevor Story swings at a pitch in the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Seattle Mariners. AP Photo/Steven Senne

By Tom Westerholm

May 23, 2022

Red Sox infielder Trevor Story earned American League Player of the Week honors on Monday, MLB announced.

Story hit six homers and drove in 14 runs, with absurd .360/.452/1.120 splits at the plate. He hit five homers in four games against the Mariners — a stretch that includes several historic numbers.

Story started slow, but his averages are normalizing over the last week. This season, his barrel percentage — per Baseball Savant — is 92nd percentile.

“I told [Story] a few weeks ago … we trust you,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said earlier this week. “He’s playing free and that’s something I told him in the recruiting process. You know, adding one more athlete to the lineup is going to help us.”

Marlins pitcher Sandy Alcantara earned NL Player of the Week honors with a week that included two outings. He went 2-0 with 17 innings pitched, a 0.53 ERA and 12 strikeouts.

The Red Sox signed Story to a six-year deal worth $140 million this summer. Story spent the first six seasons of his career with the Rockies. The 29-year-old has made two All-Star teams.

“Ultimately, it’s really about Trevor and how we esteem him,” Chaim Bloom said at the time. “But he does fit us and he does open a lot of different possibilities for our lineup and just how this thing comes together, the options Alex (Cora) will have as the game unfolds, and what his athleticism, his speed, his explosiveness will mean for making life difficult for the teams that play us.”