Rod’s Replay Insider #36: Tracking hitting streaks during a replay

After flailing away for nearly 50 years of replays, I have finally adopted a simple way to track consecutive game hitting streaks.  It’s so simple that I cannot believe I didn’t figure it out sooner. And, like everything else I have used in replays, I borrowed this from one of the publicists from the New York Mets, who used the system when he served the Mets.

Using the Fast-Tab player stat sheet, I simply add a plus sign + to indicate a game in which a player recorded a base hit. For each game in which the player records a hit, I add another plus sign. A nine-game hitting streak would look like this +++++ ++++. (I throw a space after each five games so it is easier to read).

When a player records an O-fer (i.e. fails to record a hit), I erase the accumulated plus signs and start all over again.

The trick is to get used to reading your box scores in some kind of systematic way so that you record your basic stats without getting confused in recording a hitting streak.

I use the following three steps, without fail:

1. Record the number of games played in a series (I record my stats after each series played, not each individual game, which would take forever).
2. Record games in which consecutive hits occur.
3. Move on to entering at-bats, hits, etc.

It requires some discipline when you begin to record hitting streaks, but after 30-40 games, it becomes second nature. Tracking hit streaks adds a different level of interest for the individual players on teams that are out of the pennant picture and adds some interest to replays that, otherwise, would become exercises in statistical accumulation.

And, for the statistically-minded, MLB.com has a great list of the longest hitting streaks. Who knew that Jerome Walton, Benito Santiago, and Luis Castillo (the infielder, not the current Cincinnati Reds pitcher) were on the list?

Next: Recording pitching streaks

Read all of Rod’s Replay Insider articles!