With all of the attention being paid to Bryce Harper, Manny Machado’s season-long hitting streak -- 13 games entering Thursday night’s game against the Blue Jays -- flew under the radar. During those 13 games, Machado came to the plate 60 times, registering 22 hits, including six doubles and five home runs with a .407/.467/.796 triple-slash line. Pretty dang good. And that’s without mentioning his Gold Glove-caliber defense.
Machado extended his hitting streak to 14 games on Thursday night, knocking in Joey Rickard with a single off of Jays starter Marco Estrada in the first inning to reduce the Orioles’ deficit to 2-1. He would ground out in his next at-bat in the third inning, so he’s now hitting .411.
At Today’s Knuckleball (yesterday, coincidentally), Corinne Landrey argued that Machado’s name should be in the debate with Harper and Mike Trout for the honor of “best player in baseball”. She might be onto something.