Scooter Gennett transformed his game in one night

A quick glance at May’s OPS leaders across Major League Baseball shows plenty of familiar sights.

At the top are Mike Trout (1.206 OPS) and Mookie Betts (1.200 OPS), who are currently neck-and-neck in the early AL MVP race. Both players are putting up eye-popping numbers, and the race for the award should come down to the very end of the season. At number three is Indians slugging third baseman Jose Ramirez, who has followed up his 2017 breakout year with even better numbers.

But then comes Reds second baseman Scooter Gennett, a name that you probably did not expect to see at the top of the May OPS leaderboard. In 99 plate appearances this month, though, Gennett hit .398/.418/.720. Amazingly, though, Gennett’s .479 wOBA and 207 wRC+ this month is not the best month of his career. That distinction belongs to Gennett’s June 2014, when he hit .397/.447/.692 over 78 plate appearances.

When you picture slugger, you don’t tend to think of someone named “Scooter,” let alone think of a 5-foot-10, 185-pound baseball player that was a former 16th round pick, but here we are. Gennett has become a slugger. Yes, seriously.

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