JustSON the Numbers: Ryan Zimmerman

Lets hear it for the Washington Nationals everybody, they have now made the big time........crickets. Oh well JustSON the Numbers is big for the Nats. This edition I'll dig into Ryan Zimmerman and his 30 game hitting streak and May hot streak.

Zimmerman's streak started on April 8th of this year against the Florida Marlins at Dolphin Stadium (I know people are wondering "I thought this was baseball not fishing") and is still good as of yesterday against the San Francisco Giants. This was the Nationals 3rd game of the year and Zimmerman went 1 for 5 with a double. Before this game Zimmerman started the year going 1 for 9. The streak is the longest active streak by any player and is tied for the 35th longest streak of all time.

Up until the month of May Zimmerman wasn't really scorching at the plate as he had a lot of games where he went 1 for 4 or 1 for 5 so his batting average coming out of April was at .289. So far this month Zimmerman has played in 11 games and 9 of those games he has gotten at least 2 hits in. 3 of the 11 games Zimmerman has gotten 3 hits or more. He is hitting exactly .500 this month which has raised his batting average on the year to .364.

I think another amazing stat is that on April 20th Zimmerman signed a 5-year $45 million contract that replaced the one-year $3,325,000 contract he had in place. It seems most players try too hard after signing a huge contract or decide to put it on cruise control, in this case Zimmerman appears to have put it in overdrive (sorry for the car references but I like cars).

Currently Zimmerman is in the top 10 of many statistical categories in the National League including batting average (.364, 3rd), home runs (8, tied for 8th), RBI's (26, tied for 8th), runs scored (27, tied for 3rd), hits (51, 1st), doubles (12, tied for 3rd) and slugging percentage (.621, 6th).

So far Zimmerman's success at the plate has not translated into success for the Nationals as a team. Currently Washington sits in last place in the National League East with 10 wins and 21 losses. They are actually dead last in all of baseball as well. If only Zimmerman could pitch also.

If anyone has any requests for this column let us know. I don't discriminate, no matter the sport or the stat.