Luis Arráez, the hitting monarch of the National League in the 2024 season

This Sunday, first baseman Luis Arráez earned his third consecutive batting title in Major League Baseball (MLB), and second in the National League, after going 1-for-5 in the game that the San Diego Padres lost as a visitor 11-2 against Arizona Rattlesnakes at Chase Field.

Thanks to the fact that he hit a double, his thirty-second in an appointment in which he provided his services for the Miami and San Diego Marlins, he finished the 2024 season with an average of .314 that allowed him to occupy the top of the department. He was accompanied by Japanese designated hitter Shohei Ohtani (Los Angeles Dodgers), who had a .310 average.

It must be remembered that the current left-handed hitter for the Priests won his first offensive percentage crown in 2022 in the American League, when he finished with .316 and worked for the Minnesota Twins. Then, in 2023 with the fish, he recorded an average of .354 to be the best in the section in the National League.

a rarity

Arráez, a 27-year-old native of Yaracuy who played his sixth tournament in the MLB and is part of some clerics who have already sealed his passport to the postseason, achieved a feat by being “champion bat”, because he did it with three different teams in campaigns consecutive, something that according to Fox Sports was unprecedented in the Great Circus.

In addition, he finished the contest with 200 hits, to have two consecutive campaigns with a minimum of two hundreds. In 2023 he had 203 hits with the Miami jacket.

According to the North American journalist, AJ Cassawell, of MLB.com, the sinister shoveler is the first San Diego baseball player to be at the top of the individual offensive percentage table since 1997, when Tony Gwynn had a .372 in the old circuit.

another feat

This player from San Felipe will join José Altuve (Houston Astros) as the only “ambassadors of La Vinotinto” to have at least two matches with 200 or more hits in the MLB, reported Gerardo Romero, a Venezuelan social communicator. on the social network Instagram. Altuve chained four “zafras” with a minimum of 200 “shrapnel shots.” He made 225 hits in 2014, 200 in 2015, 216 in 2016 and 204 in 2017.

Incidentally, he equaled Altuve in terms of batting titles, as the Houston second baseman established himself in the American League in the 2014 (.341), 2016 (.338) and 2017 (.346) competitions.

Arráez was one average away from tying the record for those born in the Cuna del Libertador Simón Bolívar held by Miguel “Miggy” Cabrera with four.

Cabrera’s scepters

Cabrera, now retired, commanded the average section in the American League in the 2011 (.344), 2012 (.330), 2013 (.348) and 2015 (.338) seasons. Altuve, like Arráez, is still active and would have a chance to emulate what “Miggy” did in the future.

Being in the same conversation with Cabrera makes Arráez very proud, who feels happy about what was accomplished in 2024 in the so-called Mecca of Baseball.

“Everything I did in 2024 was very great, because I had to fight several times with my body (he suffered injuries and was able to recover). I feel proud of what I have achieved,” he declared to MLB.com, after the confrontation between Padres and Jingle Bells held in Phoenix, Arizona, United States.

Valencia / Joseph Ñambre