Cardinals pitcher Carlos Martinez is Sunday’s opening day Box-Toppers Player of the Day.

Martinez pitched 7 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing six hits, no walks and striking out 10 in the 4-3 win over the Cubs. Martinez did not earn the win because after he exited, the Cubs tied the game in the top of the ninth inning before the Cardinals won the game in the bottom of the ninth.

While it is relatively rare for a pitcher to earn overall Box-Toppers Player of the Day without earning a win or a save, it did happen nine times in 2016, including once by Martinez on Aug. 29.

American League Player of the Day—Logan Morrison of the Rays homered and went 3-for-4, driving in three runs, in the 7-3 win over the Yankees.

National League Batter of the Day—A.J. Pollock of the Diamondbacks hit a two-run homer and went 3-for-5, scoring twice, in the 6-5 win over the Giants.

Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner had a magnificent day, hitting two home runs and pitching a perfect game through five innings (his final line was 7IP 6H 3R 0BB 11K ND), but earns no Box-Toppers points for his effort (despite having a Box-Toppers game score of +6.0 for pitching, highest of any player on either team) simply because the Giants did not win.

American League Batter of the Day—There is no separate AL Batter of the Day for Sunday because the overall AL Player of the Day was batter Logan Morrison. Also, only one AL game was played Sunday.

Scoring—Martinez earns 2.0 Box-Toppers points for being Player of the Day and becomes the de facto early leader in season Box-Toppers points. Morrison earns 1.7 points for being AL Player of the Day. Pollock earns 1.5 points for being NL Batter of the Day.

About Box-Toppers—Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team’s win. In regular season games, players earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.

Box-Toppers strives for accuracy. See a mistake in a post? A wrong name, wrong team, grammar error, spelling goof, etc.? Thanks for pointing it out! Contact Box-Toppers here. Let's fix it and make it right.

Top player from each game

Listed from highest to lowest Box-Toppers game score

  
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
  

    4/2
    Score
    Game
    Player
    AB
    R
    H
    BI
    
    IP
    H
    R
    ER
    BB
    K
  

    MLB
    11.1
    `STL 4, CHC 3
    Carlos Martinez
    -
    -
    -
    -
    
    7.1
    6
    0
    0
    0
    10
  

    AL
    3.0
    TB 7, NYY 3
    Logan Morrison, 1B
    4
    1
    3
    3
    
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
  

    BAT
    2.0
    ARI 6, SF 5
    A.J. Pollock, CF
    5
    2
    3
    2
    
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
  

    
    
    ` Pitcher had a no-decision in the game and did not pick up a win or a save.
  

Box-Toppers point totals of the day’s top players

Here are Box-Toppers point totals of each of the Players of the Game. Players are ranked by their Box-Toppers point total for the current season (’17). Also shown are each players’ Box-Toppers point total for this season and last (’16-17), the period 2012-2017 (’12-17) and each players’ career point total. Also shown is how their 2017 Box-Toppers point total compares with their 2016 total (+/-).


Player of Game	Pos	Team	'17	'16-17	'12-17	Career	+/-
Martinez, Carlos 3371	pi sp	stl nl	2.0	14.4	29.1	29.1	-10.4
Morrison, Logan 2794	1b	tb al	1.7	3.7	13.7	19.2	-0.3
Pollock, A.J. 3142	cf	ari nl	1.5	1.5	16.2	16.2	1.5