Longest Hitting Streaks in Baseball History

Last season Chase Utley of all people was actually getting a good amount of coverage with the media. I'm surprised not because Chase Utley isn't a good player but because he isn't the star of the team. Usually in baseball you have to be in the running for homerun or RBI leader to ever get mentioned on Baseball Tonight. But there is one exception, no matter how popular or how obscure you are you will get a lot of attention in baseball if you go on a long hitting streak. Like Hank Aaron's homerun record the record for longest hitting streak is one record that people want to see happen. To see a player hit in 57 consecutive games, one third of the season, would be incredible. So any time someone starts to near a thirty game hitting streak fans start to take notice even though they still have a long way to go. So since everyone is so enamored with hitting streaks here are the top 10 hitting streaks of all time in baseball.

Tommy Holmes (Boston Braves) - 37 game hitting streak
Streak: June 6, 1945 to July 8, 1945
Pitcher that stopped the streak: Hank Wyse, Cubs
Stats during the streak: 68-for-157 (.433)
Tommy Holmes was one of the Boston Braves' most popular players. Holmes won the National League MVP the same year of his hitting streak. That season he batted .352 and led the National League in hits, homeruns, and doubles. That season Tommy Holmes also became the first player to lead the league in homeruns with twenty-eight while also leading the league in fewest strikeouts, just nine. When Tommy Holmes went on his thirty-seven game hitting streak it was the longest ever hitting streak in the National League up to that point.

Jimmy Rollins (Philadelphia Phillies) - 38 game hitting streak
Streak: August 23, 2005 to April 5, 2006
Pitcher that stopped the streak: Jason Marquis, Cardinals
Stats during the streak: 64-for-169 (.378), 36 runs, 22 doubles, 4 triples, 3 homeruns, 23 RBI, 17 walks, 16 strikeouts, 15 stolen bases
Chase Utley's thirty-five game hitting streak this season didn't quite make the top 10 hitting streaks of all-time but his teammate Jimmy Rollins did make the list for a streak that took place this year…sort of. At the end of the 2005 season the Phillies were fighting for a spot in the playoffs as the National League Wild Card. Jimmy Rollins got hot and got on base safely for the last thirty-six games of the season. Coming into the 2006 season Jimmy Rollins' hit streak was one of the big stories but after much hype Rollins' streak ended just three games into the season. Rollins is only a .277 career batter but he can get very streaky at times. Since Rollins is a leadoff batter he gets a lot of at-bats and has a lot of speed to beat out infield singles. Jimmy Rollins hitting streak is the longest in Philadelphia Phillies history and was the longest hitting streak in almost 20 years.

Paul Molitor (Milwaukee Brewers) - 39 game hitting streak
Streak: July 16, 1987 to August 25, 1987
Pitcher that stopped the streak: John Farrell, Indians
Stats during the streak: 68-for-164 (.415), 43 runs, 17 doubles, 3 triples, 7 homeruns, 33 RBI, 25 walks, 22 strikeouts, 15 stolen bases
Paul Molitor was one of the great hitters of the 80s and early 90s. Paul Molitor finished in the top 10 in Batting Average on eleven occasions and had a .306 career batting average. On August 26th Paul Molitor was trying to extend his hitting streak to 40 games. At the end of nine innings Molitor had no hits but the score was tied. So the game went into extra innings and Molitor had new life. Unfortunately in the bottom of the tenth the batter right before Molitor, Rick Manning, got the game winning hit to end the game and Molitor's streak. After Rick Manning drove in the game winning run the hometown fans booed him because they wanted Molitor to get another chance at extending the streak.

Ty Cobb (Detroit Tigers) - 40 game hitting streak
Streak: May 15, 1911 to July 2, 1911
Pitcher that stopped the streak: Ed Walsh, White Sox
Stats during the streak: 80-for-168 (.476), 40 runs, 12 doubles, 8 triples, 1 homerun
Ty Cobb's .476 batting average during his hitting streak helped him accumulate a .420 batting average in 1911 and capture his fourth batting title. Ty Cobb would win eleven batting titles in all on his way to a career .366 batting average; the best career average in Major League history. In the 1911 season "Shoeless" Joe Jackson was leading Ty Cobb by .009 points in batting average. Before a game against each other Cobb, who was usually polite with "Shoeless" Joe, suddenly snapped at Jackson for no apparent reason. Later Cobb would admit he did it on purpose to upset Joe Jackson so that it would effect Jackson's hitting and Cobb could overtake him in the batting race. In addition to his forty game hitting streak in 1911 Ty Cobb also had another streak of thirty-five games in 1917.

George Sisler (St. Louis Browns) - 41 game hitting streak
Streak: July 27, 1922 to September 17, 1922
Pitcher that stopped the streak: Bullet Joe Bush, Yankees
Stats during the streak: 80-for-174 (.460), 43 runs, 14 doubles, 7 triples, 11 walks, 5 strikeouts, 13 stolen bases
Most of the time when a player gets a long hitting streak you'll see a lot of ones in the hit column. A player might hit every day but they'll often go 1 for 4 or 1 for 5, but not George Sisler. During his forty-one game hitting streak George Sisler had multiple hits twenty-three times. Sisler had more multiple hit games during his streak than one hit games. At one point during the hitting streak he had multiple hits in seven consecutive days. One of the reasons for Sisler's ability to get multiple hits is that in addition to being a .340 hitter he also had blazing speed. Every year from 1916 to 1922 George Sisler finished in the top 10 in batting average and stolen bases.

Bill Dahlen (Chicago Colts) - 42 game hitting streak
Streak: June 20, 1894 to August 6, 1894
Pitcher that stopped the streak: Chauncey Fisher and Henry Fournier, Red Legs
Stats during the streak: unknown
Bill Dahlen has one of the lowest career batting averages out of the players that are on this list. Bill Dahlen was really more known for power and defense than hitting for average. But in 1894 he had an unusually great hitting year. His forty-two game hitting streak ended with an 0 - 6 ten inning game but the very next day Dahlen started a new twenty-eight game hitting streak. So for one stretch of the season Bill Dahlen safely hit in 70 out of 71 games on his way to a .357 batting average.

Willie Keeler (Baltimore Orioles) - 44 game hitting streak
Streak: April 22, 1897 to June 18, 1897
Pitcher that stopped the streak: Frank "Lefty" Killen, Pirates
Stats: 82-for-201 (.408)
Willie Keeler's forty-four game hitting streak was the only hitting streak that started from the beginning of the season as he safely hit for the first forty-four games of the 1897 season. Often you'll hear someone say that the best hitting advice is "hit it where they ain't". Well Willie Keeler was the one that coined the phrase and the strategy landed him in the top 10 in batting average for twelve consecutive years.

Pete Rose (Cincinnati Reds) - 44 game hitting streak
Streak: June 14, 1978 to July 31, 1978
Pitcher that stopped the streak: Larry McWilliams, Gene Garber, Braves
Stats during the streak: 72-for-182 (.396), 30 runs, 14 doubles, 11 RBI, 12 walks, 5 strikeouts
When you're the all-time leader in hits you're going to rack up a hitting streak or two…or eight. Throughout his career Pete Rose had hitting streaks of twenty games or more eight times. When Pete Rose was in the midst of his 44 game hitting streak most experts thought it was the best shot at someone breaking DiMaggio's record but Pete Rose still came up a dozen games short. Rose got a lot of hits just by his hustle, which is why people called him "Charlie Hustle". A lot of the games during the streak were one hit games and on three occasions his only hit of the game was a bunt single. Pete Rose's 4,256 hits are the most in baseball history. Rose passed another player with a 35+ game hitting streak, Ty Cobb, to move into first.

Denny Lyons (Kansas City Athletics) - 52 game hitting streak
Streak: June 24, 1887 to August 26, 1887
Pitcher that stopped the streak: Tony Mullane, Red Stockings
Stats during the streak: 103-for-233 (.442), 18 walks
There is some debate as to whether Denny Lyons' streak should be considered or not. In 1887 Major League baseball adopted new rules that made a walk count as a hit. Denny Lyons safely hit for the first twenty-one games of his hitting streak. In the twenty-second game of the streak he got his only "hit" because of a walk. Lyons then hit in twenty-one more games before another game in which he got "hits" on two walks. The rest of the streak he got base hits. So during Lyons' fifty-two game hit streak there were two games where he only walked, not hit. But since technically a walk was considered a hit at the time statisticians recognize Denny Lyons hitting streak.

Joe DiMaggio (New York Yankees) - 56 game hitting streak
Streak: May 15, 1941 to July 16, 1941
Stopper: Jim Bagby Jr., Indians
Stats: 91-for-223 (.408), 56 runs, 16 doubles, 4 triples, 15 homeruns, 55 RBI, 21 walks, 5 strikeouts, .717 SLG
Joe DiMaggio is the holder of the longest hitting streak in history. It was actually the hitting streak that earned DiMaggio his nickname "Joltin' Joe". Many people believe that Joe DiMaggio's fifty-six game hitting streak might be the greatest baseball feat of all time and it might never be touched by anyone. If you look at the other streaks Pete Rose, the all-time leader in hits, fell a dozen games short and Denny Lyons needed walks to count as hits to get within five games of DiMaggio. The longest hitting streak in the past twenty-five years, Paul Molitor's thirty-nine game hitting streak, is still twenty-seven games short of DiMaggio's streak.