Anatomy of a Hitting Streak

We at Brave-O-Matic haven't made too big a deal of Edgar Renteria's hitting streak, which numbered 23 to start the season (24 including last year), and which ended today. Maybe we were waiting for him to get to Rowland Office or Rico Carty territory, I don't know, but the fact is it was a sneaky little streak.

First, he missed some games. Second, he wasn't ostentatious about it -- which is a nice way to say that it was about as unimposing a hitting streak as one could manage.

Now, I don't mean that to denigrate Edgar's accomplishment. Every day he'd played before tonight (which we won't discuss), he'd gotten at least one hit. And at the beginning of the day, his .354 BA led the National League. So far he's been everything we could have hoped.

But it was an odd streak -- typically, a player on a significant hitting streak bats around .400 in the process. DiMaggio batted around .430 during his 56-game streak. Quick check on Jimmy Rollins shows a .369 BA during his streak. My point is weakened, but I press ahead...

Take a look at Renteria's game log for 2006. In every game, he got exactly one or two hits. In no game did he get more than one extra-base hit (7 2Bs, 2 HRs). And not since April 14 has he scored and driven in a combined 3 runs in a single game. Basically, he's been contributing in some way to one scoring inning per game.

Which is fine, really -- I'm just saying that, hitting streak or not, we're going to need him to continue to do at least that -- just about everyone else in the order (besides McCann) is inconsistent or injury-prone. Edgar Renteria is the best candidate to perform at a consistent level throughout the season.