Willson Contreras named NL player of the week

For the first time since July 2014, a Cubs position player received a weekly accolade from MLB.

Willson Contreras was named this week’s National League player of the week on Monday. He’s the first Cubs position player to win the award since Anthony Rizzo received it in July 2014.

This is the Cubs’ first player-of-the-week honor this season.

Contreras batted .455 with five home runs, 13 RBI and six runs scored last week and ranked first in the National League in home runs, extra-base hits (6), RBI, total bases (26) and slugging percentage (1.182) for the week.

Contreras has been one of the league’s best hitters since the All-Star break, batting .346/.414/.782 with 15 runs scored, 10 home runs and 29 RBI in 20 games.

For the season, Contreras is batting .281 with 21 home runs and 71 RBI.

Cubs manager Joe Maddon said Contreras is not a player to be overlooked offensively.

“Right now offensively, man, obviously he’s locked in,” Maddon said before Sunday’s game against the Nationals. “He’s on top of his game. I know he’s done well in the past but to play at this level offensively he had to lock down his defensive method first in order to really focus on offense.”