After the weekend that Memphis Tigers sophomore Hunter Goodman just had — blasting four home runs (three of them grand slams), and driving in 22 runs — he really shouldn’t be walking around and talking.

Because video game characters can’t do that.

They’re fun — they can make you feel invincible when you press the button and they deliver another long ball — but they’re not real.

“When I was like 12 years old playing a tournament in Cooperstown, we had 10 games and I hit eight home runs,” Goodman said, searching his memory bank for something similar to what he accomplished this past weekend when the Tigers swept winless Western Illinois and he played bully-ball with his aluminum bat. “That’s the closest thing to it.”

Last season Goodman, who graduated from Arlington High School, was selected to five national freshman All-American teams and led the Tigers in most offensive categories.

On Monday, he picked up American Athletic Conference Player of the Week honors and D1Baseball/Astro Turf named him its National Player of the Week.

Through 11 games, Goodman is batting .404 with seven home runs and 29 RBI and the latter two numbers rank second in the country.

“I feel like I’m seeing the ball real well right now,” Goodman said, to which the Western Illinois pitching staff would say “Amen,” and perhaps a few other words that won’t be repeated here.

Goodman, a 6-foot, 210-pound righthanded hitter, seems to especially see the ball well when runners are on base. If he was hitting in a video game, the baseball would grow to the size of a basketball in those situations.

“In 36 years of coaching this game, he is one of the top three guys I’ve ever been around that has a hunger for the RBI moment,” said Memphis head coach Daron Schoenrock. “As soon as a guy gets to second base when he’s in the batter’s box, it just elevates his mind and what he’s able to do.

“I’ve seen times when pitchers are trying to pitch around him and he’ll take a ball four or five inches off the plate and drive it in the right-center-field gap. He’s actually better in RBI moments than he is with nobody on.

“It’s just a unique gift.”

Two of the balls Goodman hit out of FedExPark this past weekend went just left of center field, and two went into the trees down the left-field line. He says all four of the home run-pitches were fastballs.

Not that he 100% knew what he was getting. There was no electronic surveillance to steal the opponents’ signs and no trash-can-banging relay system from the dugout.

“That would be nice, to know what pitch is coming,” he said. “Because guys can fool you, guys got good stuff. That would be awesome if that was allowed.”

Also, beyond unfair.

Especially when pitching to Hunter Goodman.

“It’s crazy to think I had 22 RBIs this weekend,” he said. “That’s unreal. Guys on our team just got on base, did their job, and I succeeded in the moment I was supposed to succeed in. A bunch of other guys had good weekends and if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have had 22 RBIs.”

Outfielder Jaylen Wilbon and Ben Brooks, who already have scored a combined 31 runs this season during the Tigers’ 8-3 start, hit first and second in the lineup. Goodman bats in the No. 3 hole.

“They’ve had relentless at-bats, where it’s actually tired the pitcher leading up to Hunter,” Schoenrock said.

Last season, Goodman mainly played outfield or filled the role of designated hitter. This season, he is the starting catcher. But Schoenrock will give him at least one game a week at first base to keep him fresh.

“It’s better for him offensively to stay within the white lines than to DH,” Schoenrock said. “He has a little bit too much down time (as a DH) between at-bats and maybe builds up too much pressure on that at-bat.”

Goodman acknowledged he sometimes found himself “bored” in the outfield last season, and it could be hard to move past a strikeout or popup. Behind the plate, that can’t happen.

“I like being locked in every pitch,” he said.

After batting .326 with 13 home runs and 67 RBI in 2019 (which led all freshmen nationally during the regular season), Hunter Goodman became a player for pro scouts to know. That went to another level after he had a solid summer in the prestigious Cape Cod wood bat league.

Now, Schoenrock says, MLB scouts want to get a long look at Goodman as a catcher so they can determine if his future is there, or perhaps at another position such as first base or left field.

The good news for the Memphis coach is that as a true sophomore, he has Goodman for another year beyond this one; he’ll be draft-eligible after his junior year.

Meantime, there won’t be any mystery to the approach that No. 9 Ole Miss (10-1) will take when the Tigers play in Oxford at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday night. The Rebels no doubt will give Goodman cautious treatment.

“Yeah, sometimes I think about that,” said Goodman, who got a heavy diet of off-speed pitches during AAC play last season. “But at the end of the day, you’ve got to stick to the same approach and try to hunt something in the zone. And if they’re gonna pitch around you, you gotta accept your walks and get on base.”

After all, even those video game sluggers take a walk now and then.