Headley wins consecutive NL Player of the Month honors
It will be interesting to see where Chase Headley finishes in the National League Most Valuable Player voting.
The San Diego Padres third baseman won't win the award, but he should get votes. The question is how many.
On Tuesday, Headley was selected the National League Player of the Month for September. He was also the NL Player of the Month for August.
Over the past two months, Headley has hit .319 with 19 homers and 61 RBI. He had a .386 on-base percentage and a .633 slugging percentage.
Headley, 28, hit .324 in September with nine homers, 30 RBI, a .410 on-base percentage and a .645 slugging percentage. In August, he batted .306 with 10 homers, 31 RBI, a .345 on-base percentage and a .611 slugging percentage.
"I'm more proud of September than the August award because I was able to sustain what I was doing," said Headley, who has 31 homers and a league-leading 113 RBI on the season.
Padres manager Bud Black said, "Teams kept pitching him tougher, and he kept getting hits. He's done it all year, especially during the second half of the season. You know how I feel about the test of time."
Headley is only the second Padre to win NL Player of the Month honors in consecutive months. Third baseman Ken Caminiti won the awards in August and September 1996.
Headley is the also first Padre ever to have two 30-RBI months in a career, let alone in back-to-back months.
And Headley added another Padres record Tuesday night when he went 2-for-4 and scored two runs in Milwaukee in San Diego's 4-3 loss to the Brewers. He has reached base by a hit, a walk or a hit-by-pitch in 145 games this season. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that breaks the Padres record of 144 games reaching base, a mark set by Tony Gwynn in 1987.
