Mike Bryant August 2017; The Best Month......Ever?

We have seen a lot out of Mr. Mike Bryant in what is almost a 4.5 year BSA career.  Last year we saw the league's only 2nd Triple Crown.  In 3 full seasons he has finished 2nd, 2nd and 1st in MVP voting.  We have seen him rise to the top of the ranks in almost every category in Jersey Shore history and start climbing the all-time ranks in BSA history.  He has won the Player of the Week award 11 times and Player of the Month Award 6 times and been named to the CL All Star team all 4 seasons now that he has been eligible.  That is a lot of accomplishments, but did we just see the best month a hitter has ever put up in BSA history? Let's break it down.

Bryant has had a lot of stellar months.  You don't win the CL Player of the Month with lousy statistics, something he had done 5 times before his explosion in August.  In fact he won the award in April of this year as well.

April stat line:

.400/.455/.691/1.145   25 G, 110 AB, 44 hits, 9 2B, 1 3B, 7 HR, 27 RBI, 1 SB

Now he came out of the gates hot.  Averaging more than 1 RBI per game and almost getting 2 hits per contest while putting up an amazing 1.145 OPS.  A great month for sure.  

Now let's look at August:

.439/.480/.930/1.409   27 G, 114 AB, 50 hits, 3 2B, 4 3B, 15 HR, 41 RBI, 5 SB

Mind boggling numbers.  It's the first time I have noticed a player having 50 hits OR 15 HR in one month, and he did them both. A slugging percentage of of .930.  He had 16 multi-hit games, including 10 with 3 hits or more.  There were 3 multi-HR games and 13 multi-RBI games.  Quite frankly he was near impossible to get out during the month.  

This season there have been 16 players who have recorded double digit HR months.  There have only been 3 that have had at least 13 HR in a month.  Jersey catcher Warren Goyer had 13 in June, almost unnoticed Charles-Antoine Champagne had 14 this past month in August, and Bryant's 15.

There have been 3 players this season to have 45 or more hits in a month this season.  Reno's Seung-Chun Mun and Boston's Rob Whitley both had 46 hits in May, and Bryant's 50 coming in August.

As for OPS, Bryant is the only player this season with more than 75 AB in a month to have over the 1.250 mark for the month......and he finished August at 1.409.

At least in the year of 2017 no one has come close to touching what Bryant has done in this last month.  After writing a monthly write-up for every month for the past couple years, it is the best month from a Jersey player and it isn't really close.  With less than a month left to go, can Bryant keep it up and go on to win his 2nd straight MVP award?  Could he possibly catch his own teammate Goyer and over take him for the HR lead and possibly win his 2nd straight Triple Crown award?  With Jersey Shore all but has already clinched the CL East division title for the first time in their history and BSA's best record, can they keep the passion alive and thrive in the 2017 playoffs?  All we know is Bryant is on pace for his 4th straight 200+ hit, 37+ HR, 130+ RBI. .323+/.379+/.560+ season in a row.  Can he help lead Jersey to a BSA title?  Only time will tell.

GO D-BAGS