Jackie Bradley, Jr. and Long Hitting Streaks From the Bottom of the Order
By Jason Lisk
Jackie Bradley extended his hitting streak to 24 games yesterday. In the first game of the doubleheader against the Royals, he needed the final at-bat to keep it alive. In the second, he ended the drama early with a home run.
There’s something else notable about this streak. Yesterday, Bradley batted 7th in both games. When the streak began back on April 24th, Bradley was batting 9th. So far, during the 24-game hitting streak, Bradley has batted 9th (12x), 8th (5x), 7th (4x), 6th (2x), and 2nd (once).
Needless to say, that’s fairly unusual. Most hitting streaks of a longer nature are turned in by hitters batting near the top of the order. That’s both because they are usually the better hitters, but also because in the numbers game that is a hitting streak, opportunities for more at-bats lend to more chances to extend streaks. A couple of years ago, SB Nation did this story on the worst hitters to have a 25-game or more hitting streak. Of the five with the lowest career OPS to have such a streak, four of them were batting leadoff when the streak began.
So where does Jackie Bradley’s streak rank? Here is a summary of all of the 30-game hitting streaks since 1913 (when Baseball-Reference has game logs), by where the batter started in the order when the streak began.
[note: Willy Taveras’ 30-game streak in 2006 began as a pinch hitter; he batted leadoff when he started]
If Jackie Bradley can survive to 30 games, now less than a week away, he would be the first to start in the #9 slot when the streak began. In fact–and the 9th slot would have been traditionally the pitcher slot until the DH in 1973, and still is in the NL–I can’t find any other player who has gotten to 25 while starting in the 9th slot. Catcher John Flaherty of the Marlins in 1996 had a 27-game streak while starting out in 8th, the final non-pitcher spot. (Sandy Alomar, Jr., meanwhile was in the A.L. in the 8th spot).
So if Bradley gets to 30, he will be the lowest batting order guy to reach that number. Dan Uggla has the longest streak for someone starting in the bottom third of a lineup (33 games), and Benito Santiago (34) has the longest for someone starting outside of the top four hitting positions.
[photo via USA Today Sports Images]