Dan Uggla wasted no time extending his hitting streak delivering a two-out single in the bottom of the first inning off of Randy Wells bringing the total to 33 games. The 31 year old second baseman would later add his 27th home run of the season and is now tied for having the 19th longest hitting streak in Major League History. Over the past 30 years, only 5 players have had longer hitting streaks than what Uggla's put together over the past month and a half:
Paul Molitor - Milwaukee Brewers - 39 games - 1987
Jimmy Rollins - Philadelphia Phillies - 38 games - 2005-2006
Chase Utley - Philadelphia Phillies - 35 games - 2006
Luis Castillo - Florida Marlins - 35 games - 2002
Benito Santiago - San Diego Padres - 34 games 1987
What's still just absolutely mind-boggling to me is that Uggla put this streak together after being basically the worst every day player in the major leagues for the first three months of the season batting just .173. Tonight's game against the Cubs marked the first time ALL YEAR that Uggla finished a game with a batting average over .230 (he's now lighting it up at .232) Compare that to the averages of the five guys mentioned above in their streak years:
Molitor - .353
Rollins - .290 (2005 average)
Utley - .309
Castillo - .305
Santiago - .300
And you can see it's completely unprecedented what Uggla's been able to do. On a totally unrelated note, how crazy is it that Dan Uggla, one of only like 50 major leaguers ever to have had a last name start with the letter U, doesn't even have the longest hitting streak among the U's? BIZARRE.
Anyhow, the Braves wrap up their three game series with Chicago tomorrow afternoon. Matt Garza (5-9 3.81 ERA) has the ball for the Cubbies. Uggla has faired well against him in his career though getting 3 hits in 9 at bats, but the two haven't faced each other since leaving their respective Florida squads. First pitch is at 1:35 Eastern.
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