Reds third baseman Eugenio Suarez named Player of the Month

What better way to celebrate National Chewing Gum Day than by naming Eugenio Suarez as the National League Player of the Month for September? Correct, there is no better way. The man has his own bobblehead blowing a bubble for crying out loud!

The 2019 season was a record setting one for Eugenio Suarez. He set records for the Reds, for the National League, and for players born in Venezuela. And he couldn’t have reached any of those records without a big month of September.

And let us tell you, it was indeed a big month of September. The Reds third baseman hit .337/.455/.747 on the month. He had a season best 16 walks during the month. He also had double-digit home runs for the third consecutive month, hitting 10 of them as he pushed his total on the year to 49. That number is now the gold-standard for National League third basemen, as well as all players born in Venezuela.

Among National League hitters in the month he ranked 4th with his .337 average, 1st with his .455 on-base percentage, 1st with his .747 slugging percentage, 1st in OPS at 1.202, and 1st with his 199 wRC+. Only Pete Alonso topped him in home runs during the month, 11 to 10. In an incredibly depressing statistical oddity, Eugenio Suarez led the league in on-base percentage during the month but only scored one run in which he didn’t homer himself across the plate. 10 homers, 11 runs scored.

The 1.202 OPS during the month was his best of the season, topping the 1.086 he had in July. It helped push his season OPS to .930, which was good enough for 11th in the National League. Suarez hit 49 homers, which was 2nd in the Majors.

For the Cincinnati Reds it was the second straight month that they had the player of the month. Aristides Aquino took home the honors for what he did in August. To start the year Luis Castillo took home the honors for the March/April stretch, too. It was the first time since 1988 that the organization had had three months see the award go to their players (John Franco, Eric Davis, Danny Jackson).