The latest weekly honors landed on three young outfielders who kept producing while the pressure kept rising: Victor Mesa Jr. took AL Player of the Week, Jackson Merrill grabbed the NL award, and Luis Lara was named Play of the Week recipient.
Mesa’s week was the kind that makes pitchers miserable. He reached base in 14 of 22 plate appearances, good for a .636 on-base percentage, and piled up six extra-base hits, with homers in three straight games.
That stretch helped fuel a Rays surge that included a 5-1 record against division leaders in the Braves and Astros, along with a 35-13 edge in runs scored. Tampa Bay wrapped it up Friday night by clinching its first playoff berth since 2023 on Junior Caminero’s walk-off homer.
For Mesa, the award is a first, but the production has been going on far longer than one hot week. Since July 7, the rookie is hitting .317 with a 1.014 OPS, which ranks second in baseball over that span behind Tyrone Taylor among players with at least 100 plate appearances.
He has added 10 home runs and seven stolen bases in 40 games. Entering Monday, he also owned the sixth-best bWAR (2.8) and fWAR (2.5) on the AL’s best team, despite playing in only 68 games this season.
Merrill picked up his second career Player of the Week honor, after winning once during his rookie year in 2024. San Diego went 6-0 during the week, pushing the Padres into a 2 1/2-game lead over the D-backs for the third NL Wild Card spot, and Merrill was right in the middle of it.
He opened with a 3-for-4 game in Monday’s win over Washington, then added a sac fly on Tuesday night and finished the sweep Wednesday by going 4-for-5 with two homers. That made him the first Padre with nine RBIs in a three-game stretch since Juan Soto from Sept.
16-18, 2023. Merrill kept rolling in San Francisco, posting a three-hit night Friday, homering Saturday and then lining a two-run double off Logan Webb on Sunday.
And then there was Lara, who delivered the kind of defensive play that stops everyone in their tracks. In Milwaukee’s 20-0 playoff-clinching rout of the Reds on Friday night, the Brewers’ 21-year-old right fielder had already made a strong sliding play in the second inning.
Three innings later, he went even bigger, leaping over the fence to rob Eugenio Suárez of a home run. The reaction said it all: not Dustin May, not Garrett Mitchell and not even Lara himself seemed ready for it.
In Other News...
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What has changed is how much the team seems willing to build around that speed. Simpson is showing more sacrifice bunts, a sign that Tampa Bay is comfortable using him as a table-setter rather than asking for a power breakout that may never come. It has turned him into a useful test case for the Rays' usual creativity, and also into a bigger conversation about what his long-term role should be if the bat never develops beyond this version. [Read more 🡒]
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The bigger backdrop is that the affiliates are all at different points in the calendar, which adds urgency to every update. Bowling Green has already fallen in the South Atlantic League playoffs, Charleston is down 1-0 in its championship series, and Montgomerys season is over, leaving the Rays to sort through who finished strongest, who is still playing meaningful games, and which names are starting to separate at exactly the right time. [Read more 🡒]
Brody Hopkins May Have Given The Rays A Bullpen Jolt
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For Tampa Bay, the appeal is bigger than one promising debut. Hopkins has shown improving command as he adjusts to Major League baseball, and the Rays have every reason to keep watching closely as the season reaches its final weeks. If the progress continues, he could become the kind of impact reliever who matters not just now, but again when the games get bigger in October. [Read more 🡒]