Swing, Swing, Swing Away!

Wikipedia defines a hitting streak as "the consecutive number of official games in which a player gets at least one base hit. According to the Official Baseball Rules, such a streak is ended when a player has at least 1 plate appearance and no hits. A streak shall not be terminated if the plate appearance results in a base on balls, hit by pitch, defensive interference or a sacrifice bunt. A sacrifice fly shall terminate the streak."

Conversely, the OOTP sim engine recognizes a hitting streak, if and when it reaches twenty games or more. It should be further noted that only a hand few of players have reached this plateau. In a league where pitchers are valued more than hitters (sometimes beyond reason), it is incredibly ironic that "official" hitting streaks are actually more rare than no-hitters. In league history, to date, there have been 27 hitting streaks of 20 games or more.

Here's some tidbits for my fellow numbers' junkies:

• 7 of our 27 hitting streaks, approximately 26%, have occurred in the Dominican Republic league.
• Lagunillas' Lupe Gonzales is the only player in hierarchy history to compile two separate hitting streaks (41 games in Venezuela and 31 games in the United States)
• Only 17 of the 26 hitters with hitting streaks are career .300 hitters.
• Cuba is the only league without a hitting streak of 20 games or more.
• The first recorded hitting streak ended on May 13, 2009; it was accomplished by Aurelio Blanco, a member of the Samsung Lions of Suwon.
• The last recorded hitting streak ended on September 7, 2015; it was accomplished by Jose Garriet, a member of the Pumas of Puerto Plata.

Just like no-hitters, 2015 produced an usually high number of hitting streaks. Eight of 27 to be exact. We could theoretically make the argument that because the league has only grown in size there was obviously going to be a greater number of no-hitters and/or hitting streaks produced.

I invite your comments, questions, and suggestions for future blog entries.

The Ever Elusive No-No

Consider the following list of men:
Yo Terada
Aquilino "The Rat" Lobez
Luis Cardenas
Keishi Aoki
Jerry Bath
Juan "Ducky" Colinas
Chin "Missing Link" Chong
Jaime Costa
Fu-quan Su
Alfredo Coronilla

Now, contemplate what they have in common. The answer is simple really, this list of men is a small sample of men fortunate enough in their careers to do the unthinkable. These men, at one point in their careers, pitched no-hitters.

The no-hitter is one of the rarest of achievements in baseball, only slightly more common than the perfect game. In fact, in 10 years of WBH history, there have been a total of 28 no-no's and only one pitcher has been fortunate enough to accomplish this feat twice, Hector "Bonkers" Queme.

More interesting breakdowns of this phenomenon include:

• The United States leads the way with 8 of 28 no-hitters.
  
• Four leagues, Venezuela, Canada, Panama, and Mexico are still searching for their first.
• Four franchises have accomplished this feat twice or more, Detroit (who amazingly had both no-hitters in the same month!), Mao (who is one of two teams to throw no-hitters in two separate leagues), Mariel, and Baracoa (who leads all franchises with three no-hitters, all in separate leagues).
• The first no-hitter in league history was thrown by Aquilino Lobez of the Toledo Mudhens, on July 27th, 2007. He retired 10 via strikeout and only walked one man.
• The most recent no-hitter in league history was thrown by Seok-heung Yi of the Samsung Lions of Suwon on August 6th, 2015. He retired 12 via strikeout and only walked two.
  

In 2015, there were five no-hitters thrown around the hierarchy. A considerably large amount considering that the average over the 10-year span has be close to three. However, with respect to this, we really have to treat 2015, much like 2013 (a season where a standing record six no-hitters were thrown), as an off-year.

I invite your comments, questions, and suggestions for future blog entries.