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.