In case anyone needed a reminder, Jose Ramirez isn’t just the best player on the Cleveland Guardians, but remains one of the top players in all of MLB, and he’s looked the part over the last week of games.
On Monday, Ramirez was named American League Player of the Week after an incredible performance against the St. Louis Cardinals and Baltimore Orioles. It’s also the ninth time in Ramirez’s career that he’s earned this honor.
Looking at what Ramirez was able to do at the plate, and on the base paths during the last seven days, there’s no one more deserving that Guardians’ third baseman to win this award.
The 🐐 doing 🐐 things.Congratulations to José Ramírez on being named American League Player of the Week for the 9th time in his career!#GuardsBall pic.twitter.com/EJwAb3jMYg
— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) April 20, 2026
In his three games against the Cardinals and four games against the Orioles, Ramirez logged a .364/.533/.955 slash line. That also comes out to a wRC+ of 294, with 100 being average.
What might get overlooked in these numbers is that Ramirez wasn’t just satisfied with getting on base; he wanted to keep advancing to come around and score, and he did so by stealing five bases.
With hot Ramirez at the plate, pitchers have tried to avoid pitching to him, as seen in the eight walks. When pitchers did leave something in the heart of the plate, Ramirez made them pay. He had eight hits over the last week, four of which ended up being home runs. Two of those homers came in Cleveland’s series finale against the Orioles on Sunday.
“When your name is circled thicker or darker than anybody else's in the lineup, especially when he's hitting right-handed. Teams do not want him to beat them right-handed, and so for him to get, you know, I've had looked at where the pitches were, but like for him to get 2 homers, um, back-to-back bats like that, uh, you could just, he, he, he hits a different gear,” said Stephen Vogt after Ramirez’s two–run day on Sunday.
Ramirez definitely had a slower start to the season for his standards. Through the first 15 games, he has an OPS of .610. Everyone knew, at some point, J-Ram would turn those numbers around; it was just a matter of when, and the last week alone proved that the Guardians superstar is ready for another All-Star caliber season.
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