San Diego is celebrating despite Arraez striking out.
On Monday night, the Padres secured their hold on the top NL wild-card spot with a win over the Astros at Petco Park (SD 3, HOU 1). This victory marks their fourth consecutive win and their 36th in the last 51 games. The Dodgers remain within reach, keeping the NL West race exciting.
In a rare event during Monday’s game, Luis Arraez struck out. Astros’ pitcher Spencer Arrighetti got him to miss a breaking ball in the second inning. It was Arraez’s first strikeout in 141 plate appearances since August 10. “I strike out, and I said: ‘I’ve got two more at-bats.’ Let’s see what happens,” Arraez commented after the game. He later hit a single in the fourth inning and a double in the seventh but left due to a knee tweak on that double .
Arraez’s streak of no strikeouts is impressive; it’s the longest since Juan Pierre’s streak of 143 plate appearances without one back in 2001. Here are some of the longest streaks without striking out since 1961:
- Tony Gwynn, 1995 Padres: 170 plate appearances
- Ken Oberkfell, 1987 Braves: 157 plate appearances
- Juan Pierre, 2004 Marlins: 147 plate appearances
- Juan Pierre, 2001 Rockies: 143 plate appearances
- Luis Arraez, 2024 Padres:141 plate appearances
Main Topic: Strikeout Rates and Batting Titles
This season, Arraez has only struck out 27 times in his total of 636 plate appearances—a minuscule rate of just about four percent! Steven Kwan from the Guardians has baseball’s second-lowest strikeout rate at nine percent. No other player is below ten percent.
Arraez has been lowering his strikeout rate each year—10% in ’21 down to just over four percent this year. The last player to finish with such a low rate for an entire season was Jeff Keppinger back in ’08 with a rate under five percent.
Fans might find these stats fascinating because they show how skillful Arraez is at avoiding strikeouts.
Acquired from Miami earlier this year, Arraez boasts an impressive .330/.359/.403 slash line across his games with San Diego and leads NL batting averages by twenty points over Marcell Ozuna. He could become the first player ever to win batting titles with three different teams consecutively!
Monday’s win brought San Diego’s record up to an impressive tally of wins versus losses (86-65). They now have a comfortable lead for securing their wild-card spot while still trailing behind Dodgers by just three-and-a-half games as they head into next week’s crucial series where Padres hold tiebreaker advantage!
What do you think about this? Do you believe he can keep up this performance?
