Streaks of Gold

Paul Goldschmidt had the longest active hitting streak in the majors going when the regular season ended last year. His streak stood at 19 games in a row with at least one hit.  In Australia, Goldy picked up right where he left off, getting not just one but two hits in each of the first two games of the 2014 season.  That brings his on-going hit streak to 21 games. More numbers inspired these facts are after the jump.

The longest hitting streaks to end 2013:
1. 19 games, by Paul Goldschmidt
T2. 14 games , by John Jay and Josh Hamilton
T4. 11 games, by Daniel Murphy and Jarod Saltalamacchia

The longest hitting streaks for the Arizona Diamondbacks:
1. 30 games, by Luis Gonzalez (1999)
2. 24 games, by Tony Womack (2000)
T3. 21 games, by Paul Goldschmidt (2013-14, active) and Danny Bautista (2004)
5. 19 games, by Matt Williams

The longest start-of-season streaks of at least two hits (database goes back to 1914):
8 games, by Barry Larkin (1990)
7 games, by Hank Aaron (1959), Bob Allison (1960) and Rick Burleson (1983)

Willie Bloomquist tied a Diamondback record in 2013 by getting at least two hits in his first four games of the season. Those games didn’t occur until June, but he was batting .611 after those first four games last year.  His batting average the rest of the way in 2013 was .273 (with a .632 OPS), but those first four games were enough to help his overall 2013 numbers look respectable. Willie’s back with the Mariners now. The Diamondbacks will just have to be content with Paul Goldschmidt for streak hitting.

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RJ
RJ
10 years ago

Rick Burleson’s had 16 hits in his first 7 games of 1983. From 1982 through 1985 Burleson only played in 51 games. In those years and outside of that streak: 25 hits in 44 games.

Doug
Editor
10 years ago

Recognize these players? Rk Player PA WAR From To Age G R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB BA OBP SLG OPS Pos Tm 1 Walter Holke 4831 -0.2 1914 1925 21-32 1212 464 1278 153 58 24 487 191 .287 .318 .363 .682 *3/H1 NYG-BSN-PHI-TOT 2 Dale Alexander 2736 15.4 1929 1933 26-30 662 369 811 164 30 61 459 248 .331 .394 .497 .891 *3/H7 DET-TOT-BOS 3 Rocco Baldelli 2065 10.2 2003 2010 21-28 519 281 531 99 18 60 262 102 .278 .323 .443 .766 *8/D9H75 TBD-TBR-BOS 4 Hank Arft 1056 0.2 1948 1952 26-30 300 116… Read more »

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

I recognize Joe Buzas. You mentioned his name a while back, identifying him as the Yankee with the longest streak to start a career as a Yankee. And Hank Arft is a name that is hard to forget. And of course we all recognize Alexander and Baldelli. Alexander is one of 9 players, who debuted after 1900, to have a career BA of .300 after each and every one of his ML games (500 PA min.).

Doug
Editor
10 years ago

Are these the nine players who were batting .300 after every game of their careers?

 

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Yes it is. Tom Ruane of RetroSheet came up with the same results.

Doug
Editor
10 years ago

It was surprisingly simple to find these. The list was narrowed to 53 pretty quickly just looking at lifetime .300 hitters who also hit .300 after one season, after two seasons, etc. Nobody fell off the list after the first four seasons. Then, a glance at the first season’s game log eliminated most of the 53. Only Doc Prothro fell off the pace during a second season, though Bob Fothergill came close with his lifetime BA dropping to .30068 after an 0 for 4 in career game 101 against Bob Shawkey and the Yanks. He went 1 for 2 against… Read more »

Doug
Editor
10 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

Williams and Dale Alexander are tied at 13 games for the second longest hitting streak to start a career. The record holder is Chuck Aleno at 17 games, after which his slash was .389/.413/.472. For the remainder (106 PA) of his first season Aleno cooled off to a frigid .133/.198/.235, not far off the .172/.273/.219 he posted in 176 PA over his second and subsequent seasons.

Doug
Editor
10 years ago

Other recent season-spanning 20 game hit streaks.

Rk ▴ Strk Start End Games
1 Jimmy Rollins 2005-08-23 2006-04-05 38
2 David Ortiz 2012-07-02 2013-05-07 27
3 David Wright 2006-09-17 2007-04-19 26
4 Edgar Renteria 2005-10-02 2006-05-09 24
5 Alex Rodriguez 2006-09-25 2007-04-23 23
6 Jorge Cantu 2009-09-29 2010-04-24 21
7 Nomar Garciaparra 2000-09-10 2001-07-29 21
8 Nate McLouth 2007-09-30 2008-04-21 20
9 David Wright 2007-09-14 2008-04-02 20
10 Ichiro Suzuki 2004-09-20 2005-04-11 20
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/26/2014.

 
Note that David Wright turned this trick in consecutive seasons.