Milwaukee Brewers Manager Ken Macha says that Rickie Weeks’ approach and work ethic at the plate makes him one of his favorite players. Macha isn’t sure how to rank them all, he just knows Weeks is up there. He has even compared Rickie to baseball Hall of Famers.
“I don’t know how to rank people. It’s hard to do that,” Macha said. “I talked about [Andre] Dawson the other day because he was going to the Hall of Fame. That’s a pretty high compliment if you’re going to compare the two guys as far as their intensity.
By: Melissa S. Wollering
Weeks already has something in common with Brewers’ greats Paul Molitor and Don Money. He shares the franchise record for runs scored in consecutive games with Molitor—16—matched back in 2007. He also has the most home runs by a Brewers’ second baseman with 22 this season, breaking the previous mark of 16 he shared with Don Money.
“It is very humbling, of course,” said Weeks. “But at the same token, I want to go out there and do my job all the time. When your name is up there with those guys, you’re very humbled.”
Macha says Weeks’ powerful performance makes him valuable at any spot in the order, but that there are no plans to move him from the leadoff position just yet.
“Could it change?” asked Macha, rhetorically. “Do we have somebody else to lead off? Not at this moment.”
Batting leadoff is the spot at the moment anyway, as it is paying off well. Weeks is on the heels of Darin Erstad, the only player in Major League Baseball to produce at least 100 RBI’s in a season while batting leadoff. Weeks has 67 RBI’s and is currently on pace to surpass that record with 106, if all goes well.
“It’s one of those things where you want to help your team any way possible,” said Weeks. “If that means driving somebody in, scoring a run, stealing a base; whatever it takes, so be it.”
“Every bat for him is a battle,” said Macha. “He takes it as a tremendous challenge. Even [Tuesday] night when Gomez was batting, when he would foul one off or something, [Rickie] would be like ‘there we go, there we go’. He was still into the game and what was going on.”
Prior to Friday, Weeks was batting .276 with seven home runs in his last 15 games. In addition to being tough with the bat, Weeks has also been tough against stray pitches. He has now been hit by a pitch with two strikes for the count seven times this season, 19 plunks in all.
