Can Bryant Make Case For 3rd Straight MVP?

Before Jorge Martinez went down this past week he was all but a shoe in to take home this year's CL MVP award and end our very own Mike Bryant's 2-run at being voted the most valuable player in the league. Martinez was on pace to put up one of the best season's WAR wise that the BSA has ever seen.  With him being injured at that play at the plate, the doctors put him on a 5 week timeline, which means he would miss close to 20% of the Pikes games this year.  Is this enough for Bryant and others to gain ground and pass the Martinez? Or will it not be enough?

It's been well documented that Bryant had a terrible start to this season.  As we have covered in a past blog his April numbers were this: His April numbers ended like this: .173/.214/.373.  1 2B, 0 3B, 7 HR, 19 RBI and 24K in 110 AB.  Not numbers you expect to see with a player as consistent has him and with his track record.  Since then he has taken major strides.  He won the CL Batter of the Month award in May, was voted into the AS Game and has hit over 330 in every month of the season since April.  What really has put him back in the race is his last 15 games though.  

Going into the game on 7/23 with Madison, Bryant had a stat line of .296/.344/.528.  Respectable, sure, but all below career averages.  In the next 15 games, Bryant would get a hit in 13 of them and all 14 of those would be multi-hit games and 8 of them would be three hit games.  He would hit 5 HR, 16 RBI to go with 11 doubles and one triple.  After the Bags most recent game against St. Louis on 8/7, another 2 hit game for Bryant, his triple slash line stood at: .326/.369/.585.  So 15 games, adding 30 points of batting average, 25 points of OBP and 57 points of SLG.  This puts him Top 5 in batting average, slugging percentage, HR, RBI while he leads the league in hits.  He is on pace to lead the BSA in total bases for the 4th time in 5 years as well.  He is even more valuable to his team this year after the loss of superstar Matt Doyle.  The Bags have no one that will hit his lowest numbers of the past 2 years when he did win the award.  The downside is of course, his defense.  Usually an above average fielder, Bryant has committed more errors this year than any year in the past and his ZR is by far at a career worse -6.2.  This has even caused Jersey to DH him from time to time.  This of course brings down his WAR, which is a big number to use by a lot of voters.  Can he continue on his recent tear and climb up those leaderboards?  Can he power his team past a handful of contenders for a playoff spot?  All this is possible and will be something many people will have their eyes on for the rest of the season.

GO D-BAGS