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Cleveland Indians Prospect Francisco Mejia’s Hitting Streak Hits 50

By Benjamin Chase

Jul 10, 2016; San Diego, CA, USA; World pitcher Adalberto Mejia (right) celebrates with catcher Francisco Mejia (left) after defeating USA during the All Star Game futures baseball game at PetCo Park. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 10, 2016; San Diego, CA, USA; World pitcher Adalberto Mejia (right) celebrates with catcher Francisco Mejia (left) after defeating USA during the All Star Game futures baseball game at PetCo Park. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports /
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Cleveland Indians catching prospect Francisco Mejia extended his hit streak Saturday evening to 50 games. Where does this rank historically?

While many considered the Cleveland Indians to have a very strong farm system to start the season, it would have been rare to find many places that considered Francisco Mejia as the cream of the crop of Indians youth. He was a switch-hitting catcher who had some success and had good defensive skills, but he was a ways off as far as his offensive development.

On May 27th of this year, Mejia had two singles against Fort Wayne. He’s had at least one hit in every game since, and after having a ball initially ruled an error changed to a double on Saturday, Mejia is tied for the 4th longest hit streak in minor league history. On Thursday, when Mejia got to his 48th straight game, he took over the record for the longest hitting streak by a catcher in minor league history.

Coming into Saturday, Mejia was hitting .349/.379/.523 with 25 doubles, 4 triples, and 9 home runs across two levels, having been promoted from low-A Lake County to high-A Lynchburg in the midst of his streak.

Historical

Having moved into a tie for fourth place now, Mejia is the only player who has played since 1955 on the list of 7 players with at least a 50-game hitting streak in the minor leagues in history. Let’s take a look at the four others in the 50-game club:

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The record holder, Joe Wilhoit, hit in 69 straight games in 1919. Wilhoit was on the tail end of a brief 4-year major league career. In that 1919 minor league season, Wilhoit hit .422 for Wichita, earning a late-season promotion to the Boston Red Sox, which would be his last appearance in the major leagues.

The #2 guy on the list is pretty well known seeing as he’s the major league record holder and a Hall of Famer, Joe DiMaggio. In 1933, DiMaggio hit in 61 straight games for San Francisco in the Pacific Coast League as an 18 year-old outfielder, when he hit .340. Of course, DiMaggio went on to hit in 56 straight games in 1941 for the New York Yankees as part of a HOF career.

The third place guy on the list is the most recent, and ironically enough as Mejia is an Indians prospect, he had his streak in 1954, when the Cleveland Indians lost to the New York Giants in the World Series. The Indians wouldn’t return to the World Series again until 1995. Roman Mejias hit in 55 games in 1954 for Waco in the now-defunct Big State League as he hit .354 on the season. He went on to a nine-year major league career as a backup outfielder, mostly with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The man Mejia tied on Saturday, Otto Pahlman, is the only guy on the list who never made the major leagues, having a nine-year minor league career. In 1922, he hit in 50 straight games while playing for Danville of the now-defunct “Three I” league (Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League). He hit .371 for Danville before his contract was purchased by Reading, and he finished the season hitting .268 for Reading.

Can He Break The Record?
So here are some crazy thoughts on Mejia’s season:
– He’s been promoted in the midst of this streak and kept on hitting
– Over the course of the entire season, Mejia has now played in 86 games. He’s hit in 75 of those games!!
– On top of hitting, Mejia’s been a beast behind the plate, throwing out 41 percent of base stealers this season.
– At the deadline, the Cleveland Indians made a deal with the Milwaukee Brewers for Jonathan Lucroy that featured Mejia as the key piece. Lucroy exercised his no-trade clause, and that nixed the trade. Crazy to consider that Mejia could have also had to move to a whole other organization in the middle of his streak as well.

So let’s Mejia has 50 games now. Can he get to 70? Let’s take a look:

He will have 20 more games before he breaks the record, obviously. The minor league season is complete in early September, so he has roughly four weeks left of games. By my count, there are 21 games left on the season for Lynchburg, without playoffs, and since Lynchburg won their division in the first half, they will participate for sure in the postseason, meaning Mejia will have at least 2 more games of playoffs after the regular season is complete. That gives him 23 games. As a catcher, Mejia will want days off from being behind the plate and the rigors of that action.

In particular, he’s in the midst of 13 straight days with games right now. Lynchburg does play in a league that has the designated hitter, so Mejia could get a day off from catching by DH’ing for the day. He’s done that 13 times this season in total.

Mejia will have the opportunity to pursue the record, so we’ll certainly be cheering him on along the way!

Next: The Top Ten Prospects In Baseball

Here are a few of the hits to extend the streak:

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