Major League Baseball

What we learned in MLB this week: The A's still belong to Oakland

Updated Jun. 15, 2023 8:34 a.m. ET

Every Thursday, Jordan Shusterman takes a look at one thing from each MLB division that we’ve learned from the past week of action.

AL East: Gunnar Henderson is looking like the star he was projected to be

With the Orioles off to such a fantastic start, it was much easier to ignore the fact that their top prospect, who was one of the preseason front-runners for AL Rookie of the Year, was hitting .192/.331/.354 through May 21. The team was winning and a bunch of other guys were raking, so why worry too much? Henderson’s first few months were odd to watch, as he didn’t look overwhelmed so much as he did unsure of how to maximize the power and patient approach that had carried him to the big leagues. A boatload of walks kept his OBP respectable, but he was striking out an unreasonable amount as well, routinely running deep counts that put himself in challenging spots to do damage — hence the paltry slugging percentage in the early going.

It’s usually only a matter of time for talent to win out when we’re talking about players as gifted as Henderson — and boy, oh boy, that talent has been shining through lately. Since his OPS sank to a season-low .685 on May 21, Henderson has hit .377/.421/.774 with six homers in 16 games. Alongside his top-prospect peer Corbin Carroll in the NL, Henderson was named AL Player of the Week on Monday for his monster stretch, which included a titanic 462-foot blast to Eutaw Street that had Baltimore buzzing.

Henderson carried that momentum into this week with a jaw-dropping opposite-field grand slam against Toronto that just … kept … going.

This is the Henderson we were waiting for — and the fact that he’s doing it while playing a capable third base and shortstop only makes it all the more remarkable. These Orioles really have this kid and Adley Rutschman? Sheesh. Surely, they don’t also have another potential No. 1 overall prospect hitting .342/.480/.570 as a 19-year-old in A-ball. Oh, they do? OK, got it. Cool.

AL Central: Carlos Correa had his first Twins Moment

The Twins have been the beneficiaries of a painfully subpar and potentially historically bad AL Central incapable of making them sweat. Minnesota has maintained its grip on first place for more than two months straight despite playing under .500 since the start of May. At some point, though, if the Twins want to seize the opportunity presented by their putrid division and emerge as a legitimate contender in the AL, they need to start stringing some meaningful wins together.

On Tuesday night, heading to the bottom of the ninth against Milwaukee down two runs with one of the best closers on Earth in Devin Williams entering the game, it’s hard to imagine the Target Field crowd was feeling especially optimistic. Four batters and a monumental Correa walk-off blast off Williams’ signature "Airbender" pitch to the second deck later, the Twins’ spirits were sky-high.

Finally — after a full season of team-wide disappointment and a first few months this year in which Correa drastically underwhelmed in his triumphant return to the Twin Cities — the franchise shortstop had his moment. On Wednesday, Correa delivered an encore with a go-ahead RBI triple in Minnesota’s 4-2 victory to complete the swift two-game sweep of its Wisconsin neighbors. With a .276/.323/.690 line over his past seven games, Correa has finally returned his season line to an above-average 101 wRC+. Baby steps, I suppose.

Let’s be clear: This Twins' offense is still a bit of a mess — heck, Donovan Solano has been doing some of the heavy lifting recently! Joey Gallo has regressed hard since his hot start, Byron Buxton is hurt again, and the younger hitters have been hot and cold, though Eduoard Julien and Alex Kirilloff have looked good recently. The pitching remains strong, but Minnesota could really use Correa to keep rolling like a superstar if the club is going to create some separation from Cleveland atop the division.

AL West: Oakland A’s fans are incredible, and so are two of their hitters

I can’t commend the roughly 28,000 A’s fans at the Coliseum on Tuesday night enough for showing up and showing out in support of their beloved team that might be taken away from them in the near future. It was an incredible scene only amplified by the improbable on-field performance of a team that was 12-50 before winning seven straight games, including two in a row over the best team in baseball, the mighty Tampa Bay Rays.

While the ongoing saga regarding the future home of this historic franchise remains of utmost importance, I do want to take the opportunity to show some love to some of the players who have found a way to thrive amid the organizational dysfunction and mountain of losses, especially with the All-Star Game less than a month away. Oftentimes, with the worst teams in the league, it can be tough to identify which player genuinely feels worthy of an invite to the Midsummer Classic under the rule that every team gets to send at least one player. But that is not the case for these A’s, who boast two legitimately excellent hitters in Brent Rooker and Ryan Noda. They will surely be competing over the next month for that ticket to Seattle.

Rooker has gotten a fair bit more national attention as a former first-round pick who starred in the SEC at Mississippi State and bounced around a few different organizations before blossoming this year with the A’s. He’s been great, hitting .265/.366/.515, good for a 148 wRC+ that is tied with Sean Murphy and Luis Arráez for ninth-best in baseball. He delivered one of the clutch hits in Tuesday’s dramatic victory over the Rays.

Noda, though, has arguably been even better. His 45 walks are second in the AL to Rutschman, and his 150 wRC+ is ahead of even Rooker. He’s doing an outstanding 2010 Daric Barton impression, which is one hell of a performance for a Rule 5 pick. You never really know what to expect from Rule 5 picks, but take a gander at Noda’s offensive track record in college and in the minors, and you’ll find awfully similar slash lines to what he’s currently doing in MLB. Rooker has the edge in the power department, but don’t be surprised if Noda ultimately gets the nod as the A’s All-Star. Why? Because he gets on base.

NL East: Here come the Phillies … maybe?

Could it really be as simple as running back the postseason playlist that sparked last October’s magical run for the Phillies? The reported return of "Dancing On My Own" to the Philadelphia clubhouse earlier this month has, at the very least, put the Phillies in a better mood. Their win on Wednesday in Arizona also returned them to .500 for the first time in a month, which shouldn’t feel like such a grand achievement for the defending NL champions but deserves to be celebrated considering how ugly things have been at times in 2023.

The calendar just needed to flip to June for Kyle Schwarber to start launching balls to laughable locations beyond outfield fences in ballparks across America. He’s already hit five home runs in 12 games this month, and while the batting average still ain’t pretty, he’s starting to look like a batter worth fearing again rather than an easy out. More notable has been the resurgence of fellow veterans J.T. Realmuto and Nick Castellanos, each of whom has really started to fuel this offense in a meaningful way. Realmuto reminded us of his unicorn status as an athletic freak of a catcher by hitting for the cycle Monday, the club's first since David Bell in 2004.

Castellanos went cold for a bit in May after a strong April, but he has been sensational again this month with a 1.177 OPS. The Phillies still have some significant concerns on the mound, and they are still waiting for Trea Turner to turn it on, but things are slowly coming together for other parts of the roster at an important time. I’m not counting these guys out yet.

NL Central: Ke’Bryan Hayes is coming for Nolan Arenado’s Gold Glove throne – and starting to rake, too

One of the most staggering streaks in baseball is Arenado’s decade-long reign as the NL Gold Glove winner at third base. He is 10-for-10, winning the award in every season as a big leaguer dating back to his rookie year in 2013.

That streak will likely — and thus far should — end in 2023. The prohibitive favorite must be Pittsburgh’s Hayes, whose glovework at the hot corner has been simply marvelous. The eye-test suggests Arenado is still pretty damn good, but the advanced metrics — for the first time — disagree. Meanwhile, Hayes leads all infielders in defensive runs saved and outs above average, and is second in defensive WAR behind only Ha-Seong Kim. Hayes arguably had a case to win last season when he led all MLB fielders in DRS as well, but Arenado was at least in range to where he could still reasonably retain the crown. This year, there should be no debate. It might be Hayes’ turn now to begin a streak of Gold Glove victories.

Hardware or not, Hayes has been exceptional defensively since the moment he put on a Pirates uniform. That part isn’t new. What matters far more now for the 26-year-old in his fourth season is whether he can finally elevate his game at the plate. Hayes’ offensive profile entering this year was well-understood: He could destroy baseballs, but far too often on the ground to be an above-average hitter. Well, here we are in June, and it appears Hayes has finally begun to elevate and celebrate. His 12.1 degree average launch angle is a career high and up markedly from his 5.1 mark in 2022, and he’s been especially scorching as of late, hitting .457 with seven extra-base hits over his past 11 games.

With his glove, Hayes is arguably a star even with a middling bat. If he’s actually figuring out how to put the ball in the air more consistently, a Pirates lineup that has already surpassed expectations is going to start to look that much scarier. The first-place Buccos are no joke, and Hayes is a massive part of that.

NL West: Third team’s the charm for Gary Sánchez

It’d be one thing if the Padres were the first team to take a gamble on the ever-polarizing Sánchez when he was left hanging out to dry on the free-agent market over the winter, but that was hardly the case. I had advocated for the Padres as one of the best possible fits when Sánchez was still looking for a new team in February, pointing to general manager AJ Preller’s affinity for big names and star upside and the concerns about Austin Nola’s offensive trajectory.

Alas, the Padres stuck with Nola and Sánchez inked a minor-league pact with the Giants, with whom he proceeded to post a .501 OPS in 16 Triple-A games and understandably never got called up to San Francisco. Next came the Mets, whose catching situation appeared far more dire. They gave Sánchez three games of run before top prospect Francisco Álvarez seized the job, sending Sánchez back out into the wilderness, his services still unwanted. Finally, with Nola’s offensive ineptitude persisting to a troubling degree and no other obvious internal candidates worth running out there behind the dish consistently, the Padres turned to Sánchez. Why not give it a shot?

Sánchez actually wasn’t terrible for Minnesota last season — his 16 home runs were 10th among all catchers. But at no point did he get as hot as he has already been with the Padres. His six homers in 14 games are already two-thirds of what Nola has produced in 229 games as a Padre. More importantly, Sánchez has added an unexpected power element to a lineup that has surprisingly been in desperate need of a spark.

It’s easy to make jokes about what the Yankees — or, even more amusingly, the Mets — are missing out on, but this is about Sánchez earning a place as one of the sport’s most entertaining hot-streak merchants. Whether his success sustains through the summer is irrelevant — maybe he’ll finish with 40 homers, maybe he’ll start whiffing uncontrollably tomorrow and be back on the waiver wire by August. But he’s brought Padres fans and neutral proponents of his prodigious power stroke plenty of joy in a short amount of time. That’s pretty damn cool.

Jordan Shusterman is half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He has covered baseball for his entire adult life, most notably for MLB.com, DAZN and The Ringer. He's a Mariners fan living in the Eastern Time Zone, which means he loves a good 10 p.m. first pitch. You can follow him on Twitter @j_shusterman_.