Andrew Benintendi's Hot Start Just the Tip of the Iceberg for AL ROY Favorite

Andrew Benintendi woke up Monday morning with a .347 batting average, which should hardly come as a surprise because he woke up last April 24 with a .338 average.

In the Single-A Carolina League.

It's always worth remembering how far he's come and how fast. Benintendi went from A-ball to Double-A to all the way to Boston with the Red Sox in 2016, and he went from promising rookie to No. 2 hitter in a very good lineup over the course of this spring training.

They aren't impossible jumps. Atlanta Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson did basically the same thing. He and Benintendi were the opposing No. 3 hitters when Salem played Carolina on Opening Day in the Carolina League last year. Swanson also made a brief stop at Double-A on the way to his 2016 major league debut, and like Benintendi, he entered 2017 as a No. 2 hitter and Rookie of the Year favorite.

Swanson woke up Monday with a .139 average. He has five hits in the last two weeks.

Benintendi went 5-for-5 Sunday.

He was the youngest Red Sox player with five hits in a game since Tony Conigliaro in 1967. Conigliaro needed 18 innings and nine plate appearances to do it. He was also in his fourth big league season, even though he was just 22.

Benintendi did it in nine innings and five plate appearances. He's 22, but this was just his 52nd major league game.

There should have been plenty more to come for Conigliaro, and there no doubt would have been if he hadn't been hit in the face by a pitch later that year.

There should be more to come for Benintendi, who entered this season ranked as the top prospect in baseball by both Baseball America and MLB.com.

"It's his entire game," said one National League scout who has watched Benintendi play at every level. "I saw four games in the New York-Penn League [in 2015], and it was 'Wow!' Andrew was easy to scout if you looked past the 5'10" stuff."

Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images

The "5'10" stuff" is Benintendi's size, which the Red Sox list as 5'10", 170 pounds. We prefer our superstars to look more imposing, and scouts usually prefer to gamble on players who at the very least top six feet.

The Red Sox looked past it when they drafted Benintendi seventh overall out of the University of Arkansas in 2015. They had him second on their draft board, according to MLB.com, behind only Swanson (who went first overall to the Arizona Diamondbacks).

"It was obvious who we were taking," Ben Cherington, the Red Sox general manager at the time, told the Boston Globe. "We were really excited to take him."

Two years later, it's obvious to everyone Benintendi was the right pick, and maybe he would have been right for some of those six teams who picked in front of the Red Sox. He has shown the ability to hit in the big leagues, and he has shown the ability to defend, both at his natural position of center field and also in left field, where he plays most regularly now.

He hasn't shown all that much power (three home runs in 177 major league at-bats), but scouts who have followed him believe that will come as he learns the majors better. He certainly has the strength, which he showed off with a 405-foot home run on Opening Day at Fenway Park:

"He's so disciplined he can be an All-Star for sure in two years," the NL scout said.

The Red Sox always loved Benintendi's intangibles, and he showed some of the reason why this past weekend. He had an 0-for-4 game with a strikeout and two double-play grounders Friday night, and the swings he took convinced Red Sox manager John Farrell to give him a day off against Baltimore Orioles left-hander Jayson Aquino the next day.

Benintendi used the day to rest but also to think and work.

"Just hammered out some things," he told reporters, including Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald.

That was Saturday. Sunday, he went 5-for-5, joining Conigliaro in Red Sox history. But not just Conigliaro, as Joe Trezza of MLB.com tweeted:

So yeah, it was kind of a big deal, even if Benintendi benefited from an infield hit that deflected off the pitcher's glove and a blooper that fell in short left-center field. But he also smacked a single to right field that MLB.com's Statcast clocked coming off the bat at 108.2 mph, and he hit a ball off the right field wall that was recorded at 100.4 mph.

The 5-for-5 day would have gotten more attention if Red Sox reliever Matt Barnes hadn't stupidly thrown a pitch behind Manny Machado's head that made him the story of the day.

Benintendi will have more chances at the spotlight. As good as he has been already, there's plenty more to come.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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