TCB Astros Hitter of the Week: Week 10

Each week we will, through the magic of small sample sizes, find out who the best hitters the Astros have had over the past handful of games. There will be surprises for sure as there will be obvious candidates. It is a good way to get some recognition for guys who may fly under the radar over the course of a season, but for a few glorious days are the belle of the ball. We have a couple of new additions this week, including a new top spot. As always, we will start with the...

Honorable Mentions

Luis Valbuena

I'm not sure if we should give awards this week as the batted around .200 over the team's last six games. But there were a few outliers. I was tempted to add Carlos Gomez for his three home runs but that is about all he did this week.  Luis Valbuena didn't put a high batting average this week, but he did four extra-base hits over the past week (three doubles, one home run). He finished the week with two walks and two RBIs.

Valbuena was 5-for-19 over the team's last six games with five strikeouts. But he admits gets this spot pretty much by default since we have three slots each week.

Marwin Gonzalez

This week's winner and Marwin Gonzalez that  consistently hit the ball over the past week. Gonzalez batted .400 (10x25) over his last six games. Gonzalez scored three times, hit two doubles, and picked up on RBI as he was thrust into a new position in the batting over with Carlos Correa out of the lineup.

Gonzalez moved to the No. 2 post in the order as Jose Altuve moved to the No. 3 hole to replace Correa.

Winner

Jose Altuve

This award really should be called the Jose Altuve TCB Astros hitter of the week award. Altuve batted .429 (9x21) with a run scored, a double, four RBIs, two walks, three strikeouts, and one stolen base. He was the only Astros with an on-base percentage at .500 this past week and he was the only Astros close to a 1.000 OPS (.976).

On top of that, as previously mentioned, Altuve moved to the No. 3 hole to replace Carlos Correa. The lineup suffered but Altuve kept chugging along.

It's not surprising that Altuve continues to lead the AL second basemen vote for the 2016 All-Star Game. Altuve is batting .343 (37x108) with 11 runs scored and 15 RBIs over the last 30 days.