CLEVELAND — Steven Kwan had the gall to strike out Thursday afternoon against the Mariners. The rare event happened in the third inning of the Guardians’ 6-3 win at Progressive Field.
The strikeout ended his MLB-leading streak of 44 straight plate appearances without a strikeout. He has 15 strikeouts and 19 walks in 46 games.
Regarding the two other streaks in Kwan’s possession, they continued. He took care of them both with one swing of the bat. If you were late getting to your seat on Thursday, you may have missed it.
Kwan started the first inning by lining Luis Castillo’s third pitch of the game over right fielder Mitch Haniger’s head and off the right field wall. The hit extended Kwan’s hitting streak to 14 games and his on-base streak to 25 games.
The Gold Glove left fielder also moved closer to qualifying for the AL batting title race. A player needs to average 3.1 plate appearances per team game to qualify for the batting, on-base and slugging percentage titles. Kwan, who missed four weeks with a strained left hamstring, is 11 plate appearances shy of qualifying.
Kwan enters Friday night’s game against the Blue Jays hitting .396 (74 for 209) with 11 doubles, five homers, 20 RBI and 43 runs. He’s struck out 15 times and walked 19 times.
The top qualified hitter in the AL is Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. at .322 (99 for 307).
Kwan is hitting .500 (27 for 54) during his 14-game hitting streak. During his 25-game on-base streak he’s hitting .435 (40 for 92) with a .527 on-base percentage and a .641 slugging percentage.
Teammates such as Will Brennan have enjoyed watching Kwan go to work.
“You never know what he’s going to do,” said Brennan. “He could put one off the (right field) foul pole or hit a double off the left field wall. He’s a special player and I’m hoping everyone gets to watch him down in Arlington. That would be really cool.”
The All-Star Game will be played on July 16 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
