Seattle Mariners: 3 moments that sparked Kyle Lewis’ ROY

Seattle Mariners center fielder Kyle Lewis wins the 2020 AL Rookie of the Year unanimously. Lewis had three defining moments in his ROY campaign.

Let’s be honest, are we surprised that Kyle Lewis had such an amazing 2020 rookie season? All Mariners fans were expecting big things from the former first-round pick after his short 2019 campaign where he hit six home runs in 18 games. Now as the starting center fielder in 2020, Lewis surely delivered in the shortened regular season. Kyle Lewis received a vote from every single writer from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto drafted Kyle Lewis with his first-ever draft pick as the Seattle GM. Lewis was the 11th overall selection in the 2016 draft out of Mercer University and it has taken a little longer than some Mariners fans wanted for him to break into the MLB. I am assuming the Mariners organization wanted to be careful with rushing Lewis because the team has had a bad history with rushing prospects into the big leagues.

The patience has paid dividends with him because Lewis becomes the first Mariners Rookie of the Year since Ichiro Suzuki in 2001. Lewis joins Ichiro, Kazuhiro Sasaki, and Alvin Davis as the only Mariners players to win ROY. Lewis beat out Cristian Javier of the division rivals Astros, and highly touted Luis Robert of the White Sox. At the beginning of March, Lewis was not even in ROY conversations around the league.

In March, Jesus Luzardo and Luis Robert were the top American League contenders. Lewis was not brought into sports betting ROY conversations until the season began. And look where we are now. Robert and Lewis continued battling against each other as the top favorites for the award. Both players struggled in the second half of the season, but Lewis was able to keep his numbers up more than Robert.

Lewis ended up finishing with a .262 batting average, .801 OPS, 11 home runs, 28 RBIs, and five stolen bases. Lewis also made some highlight plays on defense throughout the season. But, Luis Robert did outplay Lewis on the defensive side. Robert took home a Gold Glove as a rookie just like Mariners’ first baseman Evan White.

To propel his AL ROY campaign, Lewis had three defining moments in 2020. Let’s look back at these three events which sparked Lewis’ 2020 ROY award discussions.

The young Mariners rookie Kyle Lewis hits a towering home run off of Justin Verlander in his first at-bat of the 2020 season

The Seattle Mariners opened the 2020 season in Houston at Minute Maid Park on July 24th after a prolonged schedule shift due to the pandemic. The team had a tough pitching matchup to start off the season by facing two-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander.

As fans were excited to see what baseball would look like during the abnormal MLB regular season, Lewis took Verlander deep in his first at-bat of 2020. At the top of the second inning, Lewis stepped into the batter’s box to lead off the inning. After taking the first pitch for a ball, Lewis went after a fastball at the top of the zone. Lewis made contact with a 95mph fastball which he absolutely crushed.

The exit velocity on the home run was a whopping 111mph. As you could imagine, the whole league was put on notice that the prospect out of Seattle was no joke. The moonshot was posted on several social media accounts around the league, so it was not only news to the Mariners fanbase. This home run was an important start to Lewis’ ROY campaign, as he entered his name into the mix as early as he could on Opening Day.

Former Mercer University standout Kyle Lewis’ six straight multi-hit games

After his home run heard around the world, Lewis would continue campaigning for AL ROY with six straight multi-hit games. Starting on July 26th, just two days after Opening Day, Lewis recorded two hits against the Astros. One of those hits was a tiebreaking single that drove in two runs in the top of the eighth inning to lead the Mariners to a 7-6 victory, the first Seattle win of the season.

Lewis would continue his multi-hit streak until July 31st. He recorded 13 hits during the six-game streak. Kyle was close to tying Ichiro Suzuki’s multi-hit game streak as a rookie in 2001. Ichiro had seven straight multi-hit games during his AL ROY, and MVP season.

Not only did he record six straight multi-hit games, but Lewis was also hot in general to start off the season. The Verlander home run must have given him a lot of confidence. As the tweet says, Lewis was hitting .455 at the end of July. He also had two home runs and eight RBIs going into August.

Lewis would continue playing well in August, particularly during the first half of the month. He finished August with a .286 batting average, .883 OPS, six home runs, and 13 RBIs. It was a little concerning that his RBIs were low, but that had to do with some of the other players struggling to get on base for him.

Lewis would start to lose a little traction and hype as August came to a close, but he would have a highlight in September which brought him back to the top of the ROY conversation.