Eugenio Suarez is a big-time slugger with a low-profile problem

Aaron Judge’s big opening weekend series at Yankee Stadium to kick off the 2025 season was one of the bigger stories in baseball, with the Bombers captain netting AL Player of the Week honors for hitting four homers in three games against the Brewers — including a grand slam.

Oh, and he did it old school without the benefit of the new controversial “torpedo” bats a handful of Yankees players are using.

Yet a lesser-known star had a not-so-bad weekend series himself to win the NL Player of the Week award, though you wouldn’t know it from all the attention Judge received.

But Eugenio Suarez is used to being overshadowed despite a stellar 12-year career. Though widely respected as one of the top power-hitting third basemen in either league — he’s averaged 31 homers in his full eight seasons — he’s typically overlooked as a bonafide star.

Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium showed just how valuable Suarez is. With his Diamondbacks losing to the Yanks, Suarez blasted a go-ahead, eighth-inning grand slam to cap a five-run rally, a lead Arizona never gave up.

But it came as the baseball world was still marveling over Judge, whose hot start cooled off just as Suarez has continued to rake. Though Judge, the 2024 AL MVP, picked up where he left off in the season’s opening three-game series with his four dingers including a grand slam of his own, Suarez arguably had a better start to his season.

The Venezuelan native’s first five hits of 2025 were all home runs, making him only the third player since 1900 to accomplish the feat (Rob Deer did it in 1992 and Rodolfo Castro did it in 2021.

It shouldn’t be all that surprising. Suarez, after all, has five 30-plus HR seasons, topped by 49 dingers in 2019. But true to form, Mets first baseman Pete Alonso just happened to set the MLB rookie record that year with 53, making Suarez’s second-best total an afterthought.

— LatinoBaseball.com