Luis Arráez and the quest for baseball’s elusive .400 barrier

“B aseball is hard,” Luis Arráez says bluntly. Although the reigning American League batting champion is having an overall excellent season at the plate, he’s in the middle two-game hitless streak when he speaks with the Guardian. In a testament to the exceptional nature of his year this far, however, the Miami Marlins second baseman is still leading Major League Baseball with .382 batting average, even taking into account his recent micro-slump. By having his batting average hover so close to .400 this far into a season (it was above .400 on 10 June), Arráez is flirting with one of baseball’s most hallowed numbers.

Every sport has statistical milestones that, although arbitrary in many ways (it’s difficult to objectively defend the notion that scoring 100 runs in cricket is significantly more impressive than 99), nevertheless have a certain magic about them. There’s the four-minute mile and the two-hour marathon. Soccer and ice hockey have their hat tricks, basketball tracks triple-doubles, and recording 100 caps remains shorthand for sustained excellence in international rugby, cricket and football.

Endowing certain numbers with extra significance may be ubiquitous across world sport, but baseball retains a reputation for being especially obsessed with its statistics. The modern game documents everything from spin rate to pitcher extension to “sweet spot” percentage in extreme detail. Despite the overwhelming amount of data available, however, to many fans there are certain numbers in baseball that possess an almost sacred aura around them: the 500-home run club, the 3,000-hit club, and the .400 season batting average among them. You’ll notice the word “club” is omitted from the .400 batting average achievement. This