CLEVELAND, Ohio — Steven Kwan had a big day Wednesday despite . Sure, he posted a leadoff single in the first inning, but that’s rather pedestrian by his own standards. We’re used to seeing Kwan regularly drop three-hit games without breaking much of a sweat.
And yes, he was after edging Baltimore’s Anthony Santander for the final outfield spot in the American League by a vote of baseball fans worldwide. He will be the first Cleveland outfielder elected to start in the game since Juan Gonzalez in 2001. But quietly, Kwan’s 1-for-4 night moved him up to the 260 plate appearance threshold in Cleveland’s 84th game.
That in the eyes of Major League Baseball statisticians and puts him at or near the top of the heap in several major hitting categories. Kwan now leads all big league hitters with a .360 batting average.
That gives him a 41-point advantage over Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers and puts him 42 points ahead of Yankees slugger Aaron Judge. He also ranks third in the AL in on-base percentage (.417), fifth in on-base plus slugging (OPS) at .
938 and eighth in slugging percentage (.521). After a blistering month of June that saw him bat .
374 in 23 games after returning from a four-week stint on the injured list with a sore hamstring, Kwan has cooled off at the plate. He was batting .398 after a four-hit game in Toronto on June 16.
Since then he has dropped 38 points despite recording hits in 11 of his last 15 games. Kwan has exactly the same number of games with at le.
