Every Thursday, Jordan Shusterman takes a look at one thing from each MLB division that we’ve learned from the past week of action.
AL East: Bo Bichette is a hit machine
Were Luis Arráez not threatening .400, I think we’d be paying a little bit more attention to the sweet-swinging base-hit beast north of the border known as Bo Bichette, who is roughly halfway through a career-best campaign for the Blue Jays. Over the past three years, Bichette has combined an elite hit tool with incredible durability to rack up a stunning amount of knocks for someone who turned 25 in March (588). While a batting title in the AL this year would be Bichette’s first, something he has done the past two years is lead the league in hits. He’s comfortably on pace to do it again in 2023, which would put him in rare air as just the fifth player since integration to lead their league in hits in three consecutive seasons, joining:
- Tony Oliva 1964-1966 (3)
- Kirby Puckett 1987-1989 (3)
- Ichiro Suzuki 2006-2010 (5)
- José Altuve 2014-2017 (4)
It feels impossible that Pete Rose nor Tony Gwynn ever accomplished this, but that is indeed the case despite each of their respective truckload of career hits and batting titles. Neither of them led their respective league in total hits for more than two years in a row.
But that’s the kind of company Bichette could be keeping if he stays healthy and keeps racking up the hits this season. It’s pretty remarkable, and I think he deserves far greater attention and praise as one of our game’s premier bats.
AL Central: It’s a good year to be a Naylor
It took a while, but Cleveland looks to have finally decided to give the keys to the starting catcher position to 23-year-old Bo Naylor. He’d proven himself offensively at the Triple-A level and evidently made enough strides behind the plate to give the organization faith that he could handle the everyday gig. It certainly helps that Naylor is already familiar with catching the rookie arms currently occupying three of Cleveland’s rotation spots. We’ll see how his game-calling and overall defensive aptitude evolves at the highest levels, but he’s delivered one of the catching highlights of the season:
Plus, any offense he can give them will be a bonus considering how low the bar has been at that position for Cleveland in recent years.
Bo’s promotion has also coincided nicely with big bro Josh putting the Guardians‘ offense on his back as they’ve surged to the top of the AL Central. The 26-year-old first baseman is hitting .398 since May 30, a mark bested only by Arráez among qualified hitters over that span. Josh might not provide quite as much power production as his XL frame would suggest, but he’s quietly established himself as one of the better pure hitters in the AL.
It’s wild enough that a family from Mississauga, Ontario produced two first-round MLB draft picks that are now teammates in the big leagues. But what if I told you there’s another one coming? The third in the trilogy of tremendously talented Naylor brothers, Myles, is the best Canadian prospect in the 2023 high school class. He differs from his older brothers on defense as a shortstop and at the plate as a right-handed hitter, but Myles shares many of the mature traits in the box that Josh and Bo exhibited as highly-touted amateurs. It’s unlikely he’ll hear his name called in the first round like his brothers, but he’s got a good chance to get picked soon after. Otherwise, he’ll honor his commitment to Texas Tech and head to Lubbock as one of the higher-profile freshmen in the country.
AL West: Shohei Ohtani is amazing at hitting alone
I’m going to come clean about something regarding how I enjoy Ohtani: Fun facts about him being the first player to do Amazing Pitching Thing X and Amazing Hitting Thing Y since Babe Ruth (or whomever) are no longer registering for me as especially interesting. I don’t need trivia to enhance the visceral experience of simply watching the dude hit and pitch in the same game. It’s unbelievable and mind-blowing to watch no matter what specific statistics are coming out of these two-way performances like his two-home run, 10-strikeout outing Tuesday.
Shohei Ohtani has historic game with 10 strikeouts, two HRs vs. White Sox
However, the Ohtani fun facts I continue to enjoy marveling over are the ones that highlight how good he is exclusively at either side of the ball. The kinds of stats that would blow you away at how good he is at one thing, even if you had no idea he also did the other. For example: Ohtani is currently enjoying the best offensive month of his career. He is slugging .919 in the month of June, which would rank among the top 30 marks of all time for a given month (minimum 100 plate appearances).
EXCUSE ME?!?!?!
Maybe my favorite part of this outrageous hot streak is that using the arbitrary calendar cutoff point of June 1 excludes the three homers Ohtani collected over two games against the White Sox on May 30 and 31. If you lump those two games in, Ohtani is hitting .396/.480/.972 over his past 27 games, good for a 283 wRC+ that is obviously far and away the best in baseball over that span.
And yeah, he’s pitched a little bit during that stretch, too. Just a 3.26 ERA with 37 strikeouts in 30.1 innings. Sure. Cool. No big deal.
My favorite thing about Ohtani is not just that he is excelling against both the best hitters and pitchers in the world at the same time. It’s that during every season of his career, I’ve genuinely wondered whether he’s a better hitter or a pitcher. That shouldn’t be possible when you’re this good at either side, yet here we are, witnessing history, every damn day. What a treat.
NL East: Michael Harris II is finding his groove
Recently, the reigning NL Rookie of the Year went on Mookie Betts’ podcast and was asked about a tweet he sent out on the evening of May 20.
Cryptic tweets are one of the best parts of the modern social media experience following our favorite athletes, and Betts wanted to know what Harris was hinting at in posting “Oh yeah…” with the smiling devil emoji.
“I just felt like myself again. I was getting back in my groove so I tweeted that. I’m starting to find my swing again after the injuries,” Harris said, before adding that he felt like “manifesting” good things to come.
This makes sense when considering the time missed in April with a back injury and his ensuing rough patch at the plate.
But Harris’ answer is all the more intriguing when you realize that the tweet in question was sent following a 7-3 loss to Seattle in which he went 0-3, another hitless effort amidst an 0-22 skid over six games that dropped his season OPS to an ugly .486 — hardly the mark of the star that emerged in 2022. It’s not like he tweeted this personal vote of confidence after hitting three homers — it was quite the opposite.
Players, though, always know more than what we can see in a game log or on FanGraphs. Harris wasn’t joking. He knew he was about to turn the corner, and sure enough, Harris has been on fire for much of June. His 1.180 OPS since June 7 is fourth in MLB, a stretch highlighted by a massive 5-for-5 performance against the Rockies that featured an astonishing 453-foot dinger.
“Oh yeah” is right. Money Mike is so back. As if the Braves needed another terrifying hitter in their lineup.
NL Central: Christian Yelich is showing signs of life
One of the stranger individual storylines to watch over the past few seasons has been Yelich’s struggle to rediscover the glorious peak of his 2018 and 2019 seasons when he posted back-to-back 7 WAR seasons, winning the 2018 NL MVP and finishing 2nd in 2019. He was one of the most dynamic players in the sport, a feared hitter who seemed impossible to pitch to or game plan around. Yelich didn’t quite fall off the proverbial cliff the way fellow NL MVP Cody Bellinger did during the same period, but the former’s three seasons that followed his two historically excellent ones were maddeningly mediocre. Yelich hasn’t been particularly bad because he’s continued to get on base at an above-average clip, but his days as a high-impact player appeared done.
Well, I’m not going to get too excited, but Yelich’s .938 OPS in June would be his best for any month since August 2019. While the power remains fairly limited, this version of Yelich could still be a spark of sorts atop an otherwise lackluster Brewers lineup and thus make a difference in the tight NL Central race. He’s certainly got my attention in the second half.
NL West: Ketel Marte looks like an All-Star again
Corbin Carroll and Zac Gallen have rightfully gotten the bulk of the spotlight for the first-place D-backs for their respective runs at the NL Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards. With that, I think it’s about time we show some love to an Arizona mainstay who has been back in peak form recently. The second-longest tenured D-back behind only Nick Ahmed, Marte has bounced back in a big way in his seventh year in the desert following an underwhelming 2022. The switch-hitting second baseman has five homers in his past eight games and a 1.087 OPS that ranks fourth in MLB among qualified hitters in June.
Maybe most impressive has been how balanced Marte has been from both sides of the plate, especially given his lengthy track record of being far more dominant as a right-handed hitter. His .890 OPS from the left side barely trails the .908 mark he’s produced swinging right-handed, making him all the more difficult to game plan for atop the lineup ahead of guys like Carroll and Christian Walker. Marte finished fourth in NL MVP voting in 2019, so it’s not like we didn’t know he had this level of star power in him, but it’s been nice to see it reemerge as part of the D-backs’ collective breakout in 2023.
Jordan Shusterman is half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He has covered baseball for his entire adult life, most notably for MLB.com, DAZN and The Ringer. He’s a Mariners fan living in the Eastern Time Zone, which means he loves a good 10 p.m. first pitch. You can follow him on Twitter @j_shusterman_.
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