Marlins player Luis Arraez is yet to become one of Major League Baseball’s hottest stars. Still, he’s flirting with the possibility of maintaining a .400 batting average this season.
On Monday night in Miami, Arraez scored another five goals in as many appearances to give the Marlins an emphatic 11-0 win over the Blue Jays. That took his average to exactly .400, the result of 102 hits in 255 official appearances.
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Arraez then repeated Friday’s 5-5 performance with another Marlins win, this time over the Nationals, in Washington.
“Baseball is tough, hitting .400 is tough but it’s not impossible,” the 26-year-old Venezuelan said after his performance in Washington, as quoted by Major League Baseball’s website. I want to land a hit every time I get to batting.
The first since 1941?
We have nothing but praise for Arraez’s performance, but we also expect that it will be difficult to maintain this performance until the end of the season. The legendary Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox was the last to average .400 or more at the end of a season. It was in a different time… in 1941.
Portal/Mike Segar
To illustrate how difficult it will be for Arraez to keep up the pace, already the 2022 American batting champion with a .316 average with the Minnesota Twins, many past examples can be cited.
1994 meant a lockout and an abrupt end to the season for the Expos, who went 74-40, but a great season ended for the San Diego Padres’ Tony Gwynn, in which he had a .394 batting average after 110 games.
Walker and Guerrero
In 1997, Larry Walker, wearing the jersey for the Colorado Rockies, battled for his part on June 21 for a .415 average. He also had a .411 return on July 14, but the former Expos ended his season with a .366 average.
Vladimir Guerrero is one who promised a .400 batting average with the Expos early in the 2000 season. He finished the season with an average of .345, which sets the record for the best batting average in a season in 2000 Montreal club history. Since then, Juan Soto has held a .351 average at Nationals in 2020, but that’s a different team, isn’t it?
Portal/Shaun Best
George Brett’s squadron
Over 40 years ago, in 1980, George Brett hit .403 in late August. Despite a more than respectable performance for the remainder of the season, he finished the season with a .390.
Against all these examples, we see that Ted Williams was in a world of his own when he accomplished this feat in 1941. And considering that same Williams, 16 years later, in 1957, at 39, had completed a season with a .388 yield. The Red Sox legend really did look like an alien. Even more than Arraez.
Our Quebecers
Minnesota Twins
Quebecois Édouard Julien has had three two-hit games since his last return with the Minnesota Twins. After last Friday’s game against the Detroit Tigers, his batting average was a .272. There has been a slight dip since then, but the Quebec rookie, despite his 36 strikeouts, is on track to prove he can be a regular in Major League Baseball.
Canadian team
The opposition didn’t pose much of a threat, but good old Karl Gélinas, 39 years and 317 days old, secured a win for the Canadian team in Monday’s Pan American Games qualifier. In four innings against Peru, the former Capitales de Québec pitcher only allowed one run. Nothing complicated: he made 50 throws, 37 of them in the strike zone. In relief, Jesen Therrien defeated the Peruvians in one and two-thirds of the innings to help Canada win 11-1.
Canada East League
Despite some weather fluctuations, the action continues in the Canada East League, which also includes three women’s teams. The Central East Jackies are at the top of the table with a 7-1 record. In week five, Ontario native Julia Konigshofer excelled with four hits from as many shots. Pitcher Juliette Lajoie did very well on the mound, not giving up any earned runs in four innings. The activities of the league, which is in its first season, will continue mainly in Mauricie until the beginning of August.