Diamond Digest || This Week's Essential 5 || 5/9/25
Edition #243
Welcome to this week’s Diamond Digest. This is going to be my weekly series that highlights things that happened this week in baseball. Every week, we’ll be looking at key player performances, emerging storylines, trending stats/records, upcoming must-watches, and we’ll end it with a question, something we’ll review each week. I’ll also be sharing one fantasy baseball tip each week.
This column is for people who’ve watched every game this week, have only seen the highlights, or for people have not followed any of the games this week. It’s a very short and concise article which gives you all the baseball info you need!
Key Player Performances
Currently, Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh, and Kyle Scharber are the leading MLB home run hitters with 12. Pete Alonso, Teoscar Hernandez, and Aaron Judge are all tied for 34 RBIs.
The current hit leader is Aaron Judge, with 56. Jacob Wilson is 5 behind him. Bobby Witt Jr. is now the current doubles leader.
Marcell Ozuna stays the walk leader, with 31, and Austin Riley and Michael Toglia are the official strikeout leaders. Meanwhile, the current stolen base kings are Oneil Cruz and Luis Robert with 15, but the current caught stealing kings go to Maikel Garcia and Luis Robert. Aaron Judge now has the best average in the majors, with an average of .400, and behind him is Jacob Wilson.
Aaron Judge leads the OBP category with a percentage of .491. He is also the leader in slugging percentage and OPS. Pete Alonso is behind him and takes 2nd place in all of those categories.
This week, Shohei Ohtani emerged as the OPS and slugging leader. Eight players have tied for 3 home runs, leading the pack. Kameron Misner has 11 strikeouts this week. Freddie Freeman hit in 12, and Mookie Betts and Trey Sweeney contributed 9 runs. Matt McClain and Bobby Witt Jr had the most stolen bases this week.
Emerging Storylines:
At this point, what Rafael Devers is doing is more than likely to become a huge situation. He is now unwilling to move to first base, and he’s very frustrated. He said, “I know I'm a ballplayer, but at the same time, they can't expect me to play every single position out there. In spring training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove. I wasn't going to play another position other than DH. Right now, I don't think it would be an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.”
In other news, the Pirates have fired Derek Shelton, their manager, in an attempt to fix it now. The Pirates are currently in last place in the NL Central and are on a 7-game losing streak. Don Kelly will take over for Shelton for the rest of the season.
The new American pope, Robert Francis Prevost, is a Chicago White Sox fan, even though the Cubs tried to claim him first. While he’s been invited to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” for the Chicago Cubs, the pope’s brother said Leo "was always a Sox fan."
The Cubs are calling up their top pitching prospect, Cade Horton.
The A’s are steadily climbing up the AL West ranking because of a guy named Jacob Wilson. Seattle is 1st right now, but the cityless team is only 3 games back.
The Rockies are horrible.
Trending Stats/Record/Streaks:
Series to Watch (May 9th-15th)
Phillies vs Guardians (Fri-Sun)
Yankees vs Athletics (Fri-Sun)
Dodgers vs Diamondbacks (Thu-Sun)
Red Sox vs Tigers (Mon-Wed)
Athletics vs Dodgers (Tue-Thu)
Poll:
Pro Fantasy Tip:
Max Meyer is a god edition for your fantasy league this year. Add him if he’s available.
And that’s it for me. As always, please be sure to leave a like on the article, comment your thoughts, and subscribe if you haven’t already! This kind of stuff always makes my day! I do take article suggestions. Email me at sportssquareauthor@gmail.com if you have any!