Adrian Gonzalez: Boston Red Sox 1B Earns Second AL Worst of the Night Award

For the first time in the (extremely brief) history of the American League "Worst of the Night" award, a repeat winner has emerged.

Congratulations, Adrian Gonzalez. You are the first player to ever win the AL "Worst of the Night" award twice.

And there was much rejoicing...

The first time Gonzalez won the award, he was fresh off an 0-for-8 performance in Boston's 17-inning loss to the Baltimore Orioles back on May 6. He left eight men on base in that game, and he hit rock bottom when he struck out against O's first baseman Chris Davis with men on base in the bottom of the 17th inning.

The bright side is that Gonzalez wasn't nearly as bad on Thursday night against the Detroit Tigers. In fact, he hardly embarrassed himself at all. 

Batting out of the No. 3 hole and playing first base instead of his (recently) customary right field, Gonzalez went 0-for-4 with a pair of men left on base. He popped out to left-center in the first, lined out to shallow left in the third, flew out to center in the fifth and then finished his day by popping out to shallow left in the bottom of the seventh with a runner at second base.

That last out was something of a killer, as the Sox were down 4-3 at the time, and they were looking for Gonzalez to come through in the clutch, as he did on Wednesday night with a key RBI double. But after he calmly flew out to left, the Sox failed to threaten again. They went on to lose 7-3.

Oh well. You can't win 'em all. And if I had to guess, Gonzalez's 0-fer has already been forgiven and forgotten about by the good people of Red Sox Nation.

I'm giving him the AL "Worst of the Night" award anyway because, well, the Tigers-Red Sox game was the only game on the American League slate on Thursday night, and somebody has to win the blasted award.

That's just the way it is, partially because them's the rules and partially because, well, I'm kind of a jerk.

If it's any consolation, I wrote an article yesterday arguing that Gonzalez is a better all-around player than Tigers first baseman Prince Fielder.

So he has that going for him, which is nice.

If you ever want to nominate someone for American League "Worst of the Night" honors, hit me up on Twitter.