King George Rules All: Springer's Two Weeks of Dominance

Introduction: I have decided to write about the two week dominance of my favorite player, George Springer. As you all probably know, he is my favorite player of all-time, because we both stutter, a speech disability. For two weeks, Springer, or as I call him my "stutter buddy", simply wrecked havoc on the league. I will do my best to recap the two weeks of his dominance, as well as some other Springer related things.

George Springer was the best player in the league for two weeks straight. No offense to Joey Votto of the Reds who hit a ton of home runs during the two week stretch, Springer was on a whole other level. Spanning two weeks, (the weeks of August 1st and August 8th), George made history by becoming the first Blue Jays player to win the award in back to back weeks. The previous statements are not a typo or mistake, as he was a one-man wrecking crew.

When the season began, George simply could not get it going, as he was hitting under .200. At one point, his average was at .136. Long story short, after spending what it felt like forever on the injured list, he came back way better than I expected.

In the two week reign of "King George", I would track his every move, whether it be his at-bats, how he played defensively, and everything in between. I have many nicknames for George, but I recently came up with the aforementioned, "Stutter Buddy" or "Stuttering Buddy". Although I have never met him and we are not "buddies", (even though I think we are) I think it is awesome that we both have the same "disability". I will often say to my Mom or Dad that my "stutter buddy" is up when he leads off a game. If I were to somehow ever meet George, I would probably not be able to get a word out, simply because he has impacted my life so much.

Finally, after weeks of Charlie Montoyo, Toronto's manger, having him hit fourth, George was moved up to his usual leadoff spot. Magically, Springer started hitting the baseball on a more consistent basis, as he is the best leadoff hitter in the game, at least in my opinion. Slowly but surely his average and overall stats began to climb and climb and climb some more.

The following before and after shows how Springer's numbers skyrocketed from when the reign started on July 26th, to when the reign ended on August 8th.

George Springer's Stats on July 26th: .236 BA, 8 HR, .336 OBP, .500 SLG, .836 OPS

George Springer's Stats on August 8th: .286 BA, 14 HR, .370 OBP, .627 SLG, .997 OPS

As shown above, Springer's average went up a ridiculous 50 points over the two week stretch, at one point topping out at .296 in a series against Cleveland on August 4th.

Springer's OPS was as high as 1.021, also on August 4th. In simpler terms, having an OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging) over 1.000 is very very good, as only three players currently have an OPS over 1.000.

Personally, I had never seen him play that well during the two week stretch, as he was simply amazing to watch. As you can imagine, he made a few teams look dumb. Specifically, he hit a leadoff home run against Zach Plesac of Cleveland and got on base virtually every time he was up in a series against the Royals.

He also made a catch two days prior to the stretch beginning, on July 24th in New York, that may be the catch of the year when he robbed Mets center fielder Brandon Nimmo of an extra base hit.

A photo of the catch can be seen below:

Simply put, I was going crazy over the catch as he ranged toward his right and dove out to make the catch on the warning track in left-center field. Blue Jays pitcher, Hyun-Jin Ryu, was very appreciative of the catch as he should have been. Nimmo is very fast and could have easily made it to third if Springer would not have made the amazing catch.

Final Thoughts: I hope you all enjoyed my post on George Springer's fantastic two week stretch. When I write about George, I am a bit more personal, because we have one thing in common that a lot of people do not have. When he hits a home run, makes a great play, or something similar, I tend to get overly excited, because in turn he gives me motivation to not let stuttering define who I am.

See you at the Ballpark!!!

Adam