When the Tigers take the field Friday night in Kansas City, looking to extend a stretch in which they've won eight of their past 10 and three in a row, you can bet Harold Castro will be in the lineup. Despite the lefty-lefty matchup that gives Castro trouble, despite the fact he ranks outside the top 130 hitters in baseball in OPS, you can bet A.J. Hinch will (probably) find a way to play him.
(Editor's note: Hinch did not play him. Oh well.)
Because Castro also has eight hits -- and zero (!!) strikeouts -- in his last three games and ranks inside the top 10 hitters in baseball in average. He's up to .343 on the season, seventh in the bigs among players with at least 70 plate appearances. After Castro delivered three hits and three RBI in the final game of a sweep of the Mariners this week, Hinch couldn't help but laugh when asked how hard it's getting to keep Castro out of the lineup.
"I’m not," he said. "I’m playing him. Putting him in centerfield and sitting Akil (Baddoo) and JaCoby (Jones) tells you exactly how I feel about how he’s playing right now. That's not his natural position. He can hang out there and play, but those moves are absolutely a reward for playing well."
In an era where balls in play are increasingly scarce, in a season where the league-wide batting average (.246) is at an all-time low, let's take a moment to appreciate Hittin' Harold Castro. He's making singles sexy. Of the 300 big-leaguers with at least 14 hits entering play Friday night, Castro's the only one without at least two hits for extra bases. He has one double and 23 singles.
That's ... not good! But it's also refreshingly different. It's even kind of fun. And these are singles that sting, like death by paper cuts, a bases-loaded knock here, a two-out RBI there. Chicks dig the long ball, but the small ball is digging the Tigers out of a brutal April.
Castro walked off the Cubs last Saturday with a two-out single in the bottom of the 10th. He buried the Mariners on Wednesday with a pair of singles that turned a 3-2 lead into a 6-2 final. He's been at the center of so many important plays this season that he ranks second on the Tigers in Win Probability Added. That is, his contributions have come at the right time.
"I know the long ball is impressive and everybody likes to see them, but our quality of at-bats has really picked up in the last couple weeks," Hinch said Wednesday. "When Harold comes up and can have five quality plate-appearances and hit the ball hard five times … that’s baseball. That’s how you win pretty consistently."
Castro has his critics, because we all do. And after decrying his lack of power, here's what they would say about his average this season: his batting average on balls in play is .436. That's unsustainable! And here's what we might say in response: Castro ranks first in the majors in line-drive rate (48.1 percent). If he's exploiting holes, so is he expanding them by hitting balls hard.
And here's the other thing: this isn't really new. Among hitters with at least 50 plate appearances in 2020, Castro ranked fifth in the majors with an average of .347. Among hitters with at least 350 plate appearances in 2019, he ranked 40th in the majors with an average of .291. Since 2018, the year he debuted in the majors, Castro's one of only 15 big-leaguers with at least 500 plate appearances and an average of .300 or better.
He ranks 12th at .304 -- smack-dab between J.D. Martinez and Mike Trout.
Yeah, over the same span Castro ranks 278th in OPS. He ranks 311th in WAR. We get it. Singles aren't special and the sample size is small. He could also afford to cut down on his strikeouts. (Couldn't we all!) But as long as we're discussing value, let's not forget Castro's played every position for the Tigers the past three seasons besides catcher. The dude's even pitched.
But this is about hitting. This is about putting the bat on the ball and making it safely to first, which has never been harder than it is right now. Castro is making it look easy. We'll see how long it lasts, and we'll see if he ever solves lefties. But what we're seeing right now is something uncommon across baseball, a hitter fulfilling his duty to hit. A skill isn't valuable until so few possess it.