Beltre Adds Silver Slugger to Gold Glove Award

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ARLINGTON, Texas — Texas Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre has been named winner of the 2011 Silver Slugger Award in an announcement tonight by Louisville Slugger on MLB Network. It is the third career award for Beltre, who was named a Rawlings Gold Glove Award winner late last night.

Beltre was also honored with a Silver Slugger Award in 2004 (Los Angeles) and 2010 (Boston), as he becomes just the sixth player (both leagues) since the award’s inception in 1980 to win three times as a third baseman. The only other Texas third baseman to win a Silver Slugger Award was Buddy Bell in 1984. Beltre is one of six players to repeat as a Silver Slugger winner after also landing the award in 2010, joining Jose Bautista, Robinson Cano, Ryan Braun, Brian McCann, and Troy Tulowitzki.

Beltre also owns three Rawlings Gold Glove Awards at third base (2007, 2008, 2011), joining Mike Schmidt and Matt Williams as the only third basemen in history to win both the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger Awards at least three times each in a career. He is one of six players to win both awards in 2011, joining Boston’s Adrian Gonzalez and Jacoby Ellsbury in the American League, along with Cincinnati’s Brandon Phillips, Colorado’s Troy Tulowitzki, and Los Angeles’ Matt Kemp in the National League.

In 2011, Beltre ranked among American League leaders in slugging (3rd, .561), homers (T5th, 32), and RBI (T6th, 105), his second consecutive 100-RBI campaign and second career 30-homer effort. He recorded his 300th career home run and 2000th career hit in 2011, one of just 13 active players to have surpassed each of those milestones. He led the majors with 12 home runs in September, a club record for the season’s final month and the most long balls in a month by a Texas batter since Mark Teixeira had 13 homers in July 2004. Beltre hit 3 home runs in the Rangers’ series-clinching Game 4 win in the American League Division Series at Tampa Bay, one of just eight 3-homer games in postseason history.

Beltre becomes the eighth American League third baseman ever to win the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger Awards in the same season, first since Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria in 2009. He is also just the fifth player in Rangers history to win both awards in one season, joining Buddy Bell (1984), Ivan Rodriguez (1994-95-96-97-98-99), Alex Rodriguez (2002-03), and Mark Teixeira (2005).

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