Jose Ramirez joined the 20 HR/20 2B/20 SB club for the sixth time in his career on Sunday.
He’s one of just eight players in MLB history to reach those milestones six times. The others:
- Bobby Abreu, 9
- Barry Bonds, 9
- Bobby Bonds, 9
- Carlos Beltran, 6
- Alex Rodriguez, 6
- Raul Mondesi, 6
- Hank Aaron 6
There have been 24 20/20/20 seasons in Cleveland history, belonging to:
Steven Kwan will be the leadoff hitter for the American League in this year’s All-Star Game. He’s the sixth different Cleveland hitter to bat leadoff in the game.
The others:
Kwan will face Pirates rookie Paul Skenes in the first inning. The last time a rookie started the All-Star Game was in 1995, when Hideo Nomo struck out Kenny Lofton to start the game. Carlos Baerga was the number-two hitter that year and followed up with a hit.
Steven Kwan enters the All-Star Break batting .352, just the 10th qualified player in franchise history to enter the break with an average over .350.
Here are the highest averages entering the break in franchise history:
- .378 – Kenny Lofton, 1994
- .375 – Sandy Alomar Jr., 1997
- .373 – Earl Averill, 1938
- .371 – Jeff Heath, 1941
- .358 – Roberto Alomar, 2001
- .357 – Albert Belle, 1994
- .355 – Lou Boudreau, 1948
- .352 – Kwan, 2024
- .352 – Larry Doby, 1950
- .352 – Bill Knickerbocker, 1934
Everyone on the list made the All-Star team except Knickerbocker, who was left off in favor of Hall of Famer Joe Cronin, the only shortstop selected to the game that year. Cronin was batting .283 with a .354 OBP.
In 11 games since returning from the IL, Steven Kwan is batting .535. Not only is it an impressive performance immediately following an IL stint, its the the third highest batting average in a single-season 11-game span for Cleveland since 1994.
Here’s the leaderboard in that span with a minimum of 40 PA and excluding overlapping streaks:
Justice’s 1997 season appears on here twice. It was two separate streaks with no overlapping games, one in May and another in August.
Steven Kwan is the 47th player in franchise history to bat .350 or higher through 40 team games with enough PA to qualify for the batting title. The record is .450 by Shoeless Joe Jackson in 1913.
The most recent players over .350 through 40 games:
Jose Ramirez belted two home runs and stole a base on Wednesday against the Royals. It was the third time Ramirez had a multi-homer game with a stolen base, setting a franchise record.
Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter and Albert Belle each did it twice.
It was just the 28th such game in franchise history.
Amed Rosario enters 2023 with a .478 batting average when putting the ball in play since joining Cleveland.
Dating back to 1990, that’s the highest average among Cleveland hitters with at least 100 one-pitch at-bats:
Rosario, .478
Ellis Burks, .429
Russell Branyan, .423
Shin-Soo Choo, .423
Roberto Alomar, .419
Jim Thome, .408
And here’s the bottom five, among 64 qualified players:
Aaron Boone, .259
Mark Lewis, .263
Felix Fermin, .269
John McDonald, .270
Mike Aviles, .272
The MLB average over this span is .335.
Bo Naylor and Josh Naylor were each in the Guardians lineup last night for the first time.
They’re the fourth pair of brothers to appear in the same game for Cleveland joining:
Pitchers Gaylord and Jim Perry were also on the Indians during the 1974 and 1975 seasons, but never appeared in the same game.
Dave and Vean Gregg were also briefly teammates in 1913, though Dave appeared in just one game.