This article originally appeared on October 10, 2013 on The Arkansas Traveler website, uatrav.com.
Former
Arkansas baseball player Craig Gentry was named the Texas Rangers’ Player of
the Month for September, the Rangers announced on their Twitter account
Wednesday.
Gentry,
who played for the Razorbacks in 2005 and 2006, was a key to the Rangers
forcing a “Game No. 163” against the Tampa Bay Rays for the final wild card
spot.
The
Rangers entered September with a two game lead in the American League West, but
they lost 13 of their first 16 games of the month.
That’s
when Gentry and his bat stepped up.
After
starting only seven of those 16 games, Gentry started 11 of the Rangers’ final
12 games of the season. The Rangers were 9-2 in those games and lost to the
Kansas City Royals 2-1 in the only game he didn’t start.
During
those 11 games, Gentry was 18-for-39 at the plate, for a .462 batting average.
His 18 hits were 17.1 percent of the Rangers’ total hits.
He also
scored nine runs and had 4 RBIs, accounting for 13 total runs. That is 22
percent of the Rangers’ scoring during that 11 game stretch.
Gentry
flashed his speed on the base paths, as well, stealing 10 bases without being
caught once.
For the
entire month, he went 23-for-65, for a .354 batting average. From Sept. 18 to
Sept. 30, he raised his season batting average 34 points, from .246 to .280.
At
Arkansas, Gentry had a career batting average of .318 in two seasons. He
collected 35 extra base hits for a slugging percentage of .444 and also had 34
stolen bases.
He
was drafted by the Rangers in the 10th round of the 2006 MLB Draft and made his
MLB debut Sept. 6, 2009. Last season, his first full season with the big league
club, Gentry appeared in 122 games and had a .304 batting average, which was
third on the team.
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