Homerless streaks in 2008
Posted by Andy on July 9, 2008
As of this morning, here are the longest streaks (in terms of number of games played) without hitting a homer:
StreakStart Streak End Games AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SO BB SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Teams +-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Jason Bartlett 2008-03-31 2008-07-02 77 273 24 70 8 1 0 20 41 14 18 3 .256 .299 .293 .592 TBR Juan Pierre 2008-04-01 2008-06-29 73 274 30 76 9 1 0 24 17 17 35 7 .277 .327 .318 .645 LAD Joey Gathright 2008-03-31 2008-07-08 69 232 30 58 2 1 0 15 32 15 19 4 .250 .302 .267 .569 KCR Ryan Theriot 2008-04-16 2008-07-08 69 279 42 89 10 1 0 20 25 33 12 6 .319 .394 .362 .756 CHC Julio Lugo 2008-03-25 2008-06-18 63 207 18 57 12 0 0 15 40 25 9 3 .275 .361 .333 .694 BOS Delmon Young 2008-03-31 2008-06-06 60 230 31 62 10 4 0 19 39 17 9 4 .270 .321 .348 .669 MIN Jason Kendall 2008-03-31 2008-06-10 58 194 16 48 12 2 0 19 14 16 2 2 .247 .324 .330 .654 MIL Jamey Carroll 2008-04-06 2008-07-08 56 194 29 52 7 4 0 19 35 17 5 1 .268 .344 .345 .689 CLE Tony Pena 2008-03-31 2008-06-24 56 169 14 26 4 1 0 8 36 5 3 1 .154 .177 .189 .366 KCR
The full list is here.
Many of the top streaks are ongoing. Bartlett, Pierre, and Gathright all have yet to hit a homer this year. Theriot hit one in mid-April but none since.
One guy who really sticks out to me is Julio Lugo. He's had double-digit homers in 4 out of his 8 seasons prior to this year but has managed just 1 so far this year. And it's not like he's doing anything else with the bat considering his absolutely horrid .676 OPS. Boston has made numerous excellent player acquisitions in the last several years (coming to mind right away are Matsuzaka, Beckett, Lowell, Okajima, and even Nancy J.D. Drew seems to be turning it around) but in Lugo they've been saddled with one of the worst players in the major leagues.
Isn't it crazy to see a list like this? 20 years ago, lots of guys (especially middle infielders) would go the whole season with 0, 1, or 2 homers. To see streaks of 80+ games wouldn't be that rare. Now, we expect every guy to have at least a handful every year.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I don't know why Reggie Willits doesn;t show as he has 39 games without a HR. In fact he has played 203 games since he debuted in '06 without going deep.
July 9th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Juan Pierre has gone 246 straight games without a home run, going back to 2006.
July 9th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Sorry--it's 2008 only.
July 9th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
In the modern era, the all-time leader for games in a career without a HR (for a non-pitcher) is Mick Kelleher with 622, who had a whopping 0.519 OPS in the years 1972-1982. Also, Bill Holbert went 623 games in 1876-1888 with an even lower OPS (0.460); at least he was a catcher.
July 9th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Duane Kuiper went the last 698 games of his career without a homer. i know it's supposed to be 2008 only, but i'm just sayin'.
July 9th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Whiz you might be confusing two players. Mick Kelleher was 0 HR in 622 games but he was a 3B-SS-2B for the Cards, Astros, Cards 9again, Tigers and Angels from 1972-1981. His OPS was .519. Perhaps thats why he is still known as "The Mick".
It looks like you were describing Bill Holbert who actually played 623 games primarily as a C, his career spanned the years you mentioned and the .460 OPS matches.
July 9th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Kuiper also went the first 357 games homerless as well.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
I took a look at some recent, homer-happy seasons to see who had the longest homerless streak. In 1996, it was Ray Ordonez, 143 games. In 1998, Rey Ordonez, 139 games. In 2000, Rey Sanchez, 130 games. So it seems like even in recent years you get streaks of over 100 games, as long as someone named Rey is playing.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
or someone named Jason Kendall: 150 games during 2005, and another 52 to start 2006.