Last week’s award was shared between Jose Bautista and Jason Giambi, as both hit three home runs in a game.

Shift ahead to this past week and that would make two hitters prime contenders for the award.  The Milwaukee Brewers’ Corey Hart hit three home runs in a game against the Nationals on Monday and the White Sox’s Carlos Quentin repeated the feat on Tuesday with a triple-salvo against the Texas Rangers.  They deserved to be in the running, but hitting three homers is clearly a ‘last week’ fad that they decided to latch on to, so they don’t quite get the vote this time.

Who else had notable performances on the week?

In terms of individual games, James Shields pitched a complete game shut-out, with 13 strikeouts, against the Florida Marlins on Sunday.  Meanwhile the Cleveland Indians’ shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera is having a great start to the season and he went 5-for-5 on Sunday against the Cincinnati Reds, with two home runs, five RBIs and a stolen base.

The Washington Nationals’ Michael Morse had an impressive series this week as well.  He hit three home runs in three days against the Brewers, although that didn’t stop the Nats from being swept in the three-game series. 

The winner 

But for all the above, there really was only one contender.  The Phillies’ infiielder Wilson Valdez ended up on the mound for his team on Wednesday.  It took 19 innings to split the Phillies and Reds and Valdez was credited with a win thanks to his emergency inning of relief pitching. 

Valdez took to the job like he was a natural, ramping up a fastball to 90 MPH and even shaking off his catcher, much to the amusement of teammate Ryan Howard.  He got three outs without giving up a hit, the only blemish on his record being a hit-by-pitch on a curveball that got away from him and landed on Scott Rolen’s leg. 

Valdez became only the third position player to earn a win on the mound since 1968 and for that he deserves to get the Performance of the Week award too.