Cool Hand Luke Voit: Yankees’ slugger rewarded for hot bat

First baseman Luke Voit will lead the New York Yankees into the American League Wild Card Game against the Oakland A’s on Wednesday, October 3, 2018 (10/3/18) at Yankee Stadium. The winner will face the Boston Red Sox in the American League Division Series.

When the Yankees host the Oakland A’s in the American League Wild Card Game on Wednesday at Yankee Stadium, they will have the reigning American League Player of the Week in their dugout.

Major League Baseball announced Monday that first baseman Luke Voit is the AL Player of the Week for the period ending September 30th.

Below are the details, per MLB PR:

Voit batted .458 (11-for-24) with five runs scored, three doubles, three home runs, eight RBI and three walks across six games played to earn his first career AL Player of the Week Award. Among qualified AL leaders, Luke finished the period first in slugging percentage (.958) and total bases (23); tied for first in hits, home runs, RBI and extra-base hits (6); third in batting average; tied for third in doubles; and fourth in on-base percentage (.519). Luke is the third different Yankees player (fourth time) to earn weekly honors this season, joining his teammates Didi Gregorius (April 29th) and Gleyber Torres (May 27th & September 2nd).

Voit, who was acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals near the non-waiver trade deadline on July 29th, finished his strong 2018 campaign on a seven-game hitting streak dating back to September 24th. Since his game on September 19th in which he batted 4-for-4 with his second multi-homer game of the season (also August 24th), Voit slashed .419/.468/.977 with 12 runs scored, 18 hits, three doubles, seven homers and 16 RBI over his last 11 games. In addition, Voit homered in each of his final three games of the season, and logged at least one RBI in each of his final five contests. The home run streak was his second this season in which he homered in three straight games (also September 2nd-4th). The 27-year-old is the only Yankee this season to log a pair of such streaks. Additionally, Luke’s five-game RBI streak is tied for the third-longest by a Yankee this season, trailing only Aaron Judge (7; May 6th-13th) and Miguel Andujar (6; April 16th-23rd). In his second Major League season, Voit posted a slash line of .322/.398/.671 to go along with 30 runs scored, 46 hits, five doubles, 15 home runs and 36 RBI across 47 games.

Other noteworthy performances last week included Luke’s teammates Andujar (5 R, 4 2B, 2 HR, 7 RBI) and Giancarlo Stanton (.417, 7 R, 3 2B, 3 HR); shortstop Xander Bogaerts (.429, 4 R, 4 XBH, 8 RBI) and starter Nathan Eovaldi (1-0, 1.29 ERA, 7.0 IP, 14 SO) of the Boston Red Sox; All-Star starting pitcher Corey Kluber (1-0, 2.25 ERA, 12.0 IP, 17 SO) of the Cleveland Indians; designated hitter/starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani (.333, 5 R, 3 XBH, 6 RBI) of the Los Angeles Angels; and first baseman Joe Mauer (.379, 9 R, 11 H, 2 2B) of the Minnesota Twins.

In recognition of his American League Player of the Week Award, Luke Voit will be awarded a watch courtesy of Rockwell.

Mike Rosenstein may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @rosenstein73. Find NJ.com on Facebook.