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Wes Bankston did not win this actual
trophy for earning league Player of the
Week honors, but has been tearing it up
for the Bats.
For the week of June 8-14, Louisville Bat Wes Bankston won the International League's Batter of the Week award after hitting an obscene .462 with a pair of homers, eight RBIs, and 12 hits over the six-game span. Bankston's eight ribbys and five extra-base hits for the week led the league, and he burned opposing pitchers for five multi-hit games, all of which ended in Louisville victories, helping the team recapture the division lead. The rest of the league can't wait for the month of June to end, as Bankston has been hitting .383 for the month with 18 hits, helping Louisville enter their current homestand winners of 11 of their last 13.
Bankston, a six-foot-four right hander who was signed by the Reds' organization this offseason, has spent the entire year at the triple-A level and has provided the Bats with some much-needed offensive firepower, leading the squad with 11 homers and 40 runs batted in, while batting .257. Bankston has been a defensive nomad of sorts in 2009, starting games at first base, third base, left field, as well as designated hitter. The 25-year-old's eleven dingers are tied for second in the league, well behind the beastlike Shelley Duncan (20), who plays for the Yankees top farm club in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Although there are 14 teams in the International League, Louisville has been raking in the hardware, as Bats OF Drew Stubbs has also won Batter of the Week honors once, and pitcher Homer Bailey has won Pitcher of the Week honors twice. Pitcher Matt Maloney also earned the award before being called up to play with the big boys in Cincinnati.
Bankston cracked the triple-A level midway through 2006 while in the Devil Rays organization, and then signed with the Oakland A's before 2008. After crushing triple-A pitching with 20 big flies and a .280 average to start the 2008 season, while playing for the Sacramento River Cats, Bankston made his major-league debut with Oakland on July 2nd. In two stints with the Athletics, Bankston hit just above the Mendoza line (.203) in 59 at-bats, but was mostly plagued by his extreme dislike of Oakland's green and yellow uniforms, and an even greater disdain for the A's 'Bash Brothers' teams of the late '80s.
Bankston, who graduated from Plano East high school in Texas, was an all-district quarterback while playing football as an adolescent, and had committed to play football for the University of Texas before taking the money and signing with the Devil Rays, who drafted him in the fourth round of the 2002 first-year player draft. Luckily for Vince Young, Bankston decided not to pursue his football career in the burnt orange, although he sometimes looks in the mirror and gives himself the 'horns down' symbol while dreaming of lighting up Oklahoma in the Red River shootout.
Fans and non-fans alike can catch the Bats at home every day from now until Monday, June 16th. Tomorrow's (Wednesday) game will be played at 11:45AM, and will pit the en fuego Homer Bailey pitching for Louisville against the Norfolk Tides, who come into the game with the league's best record.
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