Despite the fact that the statistic presented in this article is pretty wild, let me make one thing clear: Khris Davis will forever hold the very official record of “strangest statistical anomaly.” The former Athletics slugger batted .247 in 2015, .247 in 2016, .247 in 2017 and .247 in 2018, and you really can’t get any stranger than that.
Still, an AL West rival produced a stat line in 2021 that serves as a pretty strong contender to that aforementioned title. His name is Jose Altuve, and he’s apparently been obsessed with the number .278 this year.
A career .308 hitter, Altuve has led the league in batting average three times in his career, so .278 is something of a low mark for him. It’s still quite good, however, and it becomes even better when you see how incredibly consistent Altuve was in reference to finding success at that rate. A post from Twitter user Astronomic highlighted the bizarre stat.
That’s right. Altuve batted .278 this year, batted .278 both before and after the All-Star break, and batted .278 against both left-handed pitching and right-handed pitching. If that’s not consistency, I don’t know what is.
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Maybe Altuve took inspiration from Hall of Famer Roger Bresnehan, who is MLB’s all-time leader for the most seasons with a .278 batting average. Yes, I really found that stat. And yes, the all-powerful Stathead allowed me to do so, also informing me that Bresnehan’s four seasons of .278 production makes him one of only two players with three such campaigns. The other is Randy Velarde, who batted .278 in 1995, 2000 and 2001.
Enough of that, though — apologies for the complete baseball nerdom that just came over me. What’s more important is that if Altuve gets, oh, I don’t know, 11 hits in 65 at-bats this postseason, he’ll have a career postseason batting average of .278 as well. Astros fans are probably hoping this isn’t the case, seeing as an 11-65 stretch is the opposite of what they’ll need if they want to take home another World Series trophy, but you can’t deny that stat nerds would be pretty impressed.
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