MLB Hot Bats
Who's Seeing It Best: Elly De La Cruz Tops the MLB Hot-Bat Board
Published
Elly De La Cruz 
Javier Sanoja 
Ivan Herrera
Hitting is contagious, streaky, and gloriously unfair, and the only honest way to track it is the box score. From the last seven days of captured games, minimum 8 at-bats to qualify, here is who is genuinely hot.
The hottest hand
Elly De La Cruz has spent the week making pitchers miserable. The CIN hitter has rapped out twelve hits in 24 at-bats across six games, a .500 average, and nobody else in the sample is particularly close.
Averaged out, he is banging 2.0 hits a night over the window, which is the difference between a hot streak and a headline streak.
Add three home runs and 7 RBI, and you have a hitter carrying his corner of the lineup.
Right behind him
Then comes Thomas Saggese (STL): 12 hits in 24 at-bats, a .500 clip with three homers and eight RBI.
Javier Sanoja (MIA) has quietly gone 12-for-27 (.444) with two homers and five RBI.
Add Ivan Herrera (STL) to the watch list as well, 12-for-31 over the stretch with two homers and nine RBI.
Filling out the board: Rafael Devers (SF) 11-for-26, Teoscar Hernandez (LAD) 11-for-26, Tommy Edman (LAD) 11-for-31.
By the numbers
The five hottest qualified lines, side by side:
| Player | Team | Line | AVG | HR | RBI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elly De La Cruz | CIN | 12-for-24 | .500 | 3 | 7 |
| Thomas Saggese | STL | 12-for-24 | .500 | 3 | 8 |
| Javier Sanoja | MIA | 12-for-27 | .444 | 2 | 5 |
| Ivan Herrera | STL | 12-for-31 | .387 | 2 | 9 |
| Rafael Devers | SF | 11-for-26 | .423 | 5 | 13 |
One more thing
A word on the cutoff: hitters need 8 at-bats and multiple games in the window to make this list, which keeps one-night wonders off the board.
Nobody stays this hot forever, and the box scores will tell us the moment it cools. Until then, enjoy the show.
The schedule cooperates, too, Cincinnati Reds face Los Angeles Dodgers next, so this story gets its next chapter almost immediately.