Colorado Rockies: David Dahl’s Hitting Streak Comes To An End
After getting his career off to a historic start, Colorado Rockies rookie David Dahl experienced the hard luck of baseball for the first time on Friday night.
It took 75 years for someone to match Chuck Aleno’s record for consecutive games collecting a hit to start a career, but just one night for David Dahl’s historic streak to come to an end. The Colorado Rockies left fielder, who hit in the first 17 games of his MLB career, took an 0-for-4 on Friday night against the Philadelphia Phillies, the first time he has gone hitless.
The tenth overall pick of the 2012 MLB Draft out of Birmingham, Alabama’s Oak Mountain High School, Dahl was a consensus top 50 prospect by MLB.com, Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus. He was called up to the big leagues and made his debut on July 25th against the Baltimore Orioles after slashing .314/.394/.569 with 18 home runs between Double-A and Triple-A in 2016.
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Dahl’s emergence has come with Colorado in the thick of the National League Wild Card race. The Rockies, 56-60, enter play on Saturday just 4.5 games out of the second wild card spot currently held by the Miami Marlins. In 18 games with the big league club, Dahl has a slash line of .338/.373/.563 with a double, three triples, three homers, and 10 runs batted in, though he also has a 23-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Aleno spent parts of four seasons with the Cincinnati Reds from 1941 to 1944, but was never able to replicate the success he had to start his career. In 118 career games, the infielder slashed just .209/.281/.281 with 11 doubles, three triples, two home runs, and 34 RBIs.
While Dahl is the first player to match Aleno’s record streak, two others have come close. In 2000, Juan Pierre, also of the Rockies, hit in 16 straight games to begin his career, as did Willie Jones of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1950. No other player has ever hit in more than 13 straight games to start a career.
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Colorado and Dahl will be back on the field on Saturday night against the Phillies looking to snap out of a tailspin that has seen the team lose seven of its last nine games. Dahl will be in left field and squaring off against Philadelphia’s Jerad Eickhoff as he tries to start a new streak.