Luis Arraez’s alarming slump boils down to one issue at the plate

Luis Arraez and the word “slump” don’t usually belong in the same sentence. For years, he’s been one of baseball’s most reliable contact-first hitters, a throwback to an era when batting averages mattered more than launch angles. But lately, some San Diego Padres fans have been left scratching their heads watching the two-time batting champ slap his way through one of the most uncharacteristic stretches of his career.

Arraez is still hitting .283 on the season, a number most players would gladly take — but for a career .316 hitter, the drop-off is jarring. The problem hasn’t been the lack of loud contact. In August, he hit just .233/.257/.320 with no home runs and seven RBIs, and over the past week, he’s hit just .192. And yet, true to form, not a single strikeout. That’s the paradox: the very trait that makes Arraez so special, the refusal to go down on strikes, might actually be fueling his slump.

Padres’ Luis Arraez struggling as contact-first approach backfires in August

Instead of attacking hittable pitches early in the count, Arraez has fallen into a troubling pattern of letting first pitches go by. More often than not, he’s working himself into two-strike counts, where his bat control forces him into defensive swings that produce even more weak contact. Padres fans aren’t blind to it. The constant groundouts and bloop outs are starting to feel less like “putting the ball in play” and more like wasted at-bats. Meanwhile, Ryan O’Hearn, who has made the most of his own opportunities, is beginning to look like the better option in the eyes of some impatient fans.

The numbers back up the frustration. On 0-2 counts, Arraez owns a 72 wRC+. On 1-2, it ticks up slightly to 80. On 2-2, it’s 94. In other words: he’s well below league average any time the pitcher is in control. But here’s the kicker, when he gets ahead 1-0, Arraez has historically thrived. That should be the green light for aggression. Instead, his tendency to take pitches until two strikes is proving costly. Fans see it. The data proves it. The approach simply isn’t working.

None of this is to say Arraez is broken. He’s too gifted a hitter, with too much of a track record, for this slump to last forever. He’ll find a rhythm again, and when he does, the same fans pulling their hair out now will once again be celebrating the value of a hitter who can spray line drives and move baserunners without ever whiffing.

Even ESPN’s Jeff Passan recently touched on Arraez’s strange value, telling Just Baseball: “I know his WAR sucks, compared to what everyone sees with his batting average. I do still think there’s a ton of value in putting the ball in play, and the man does not strike out.”

For now, though, the Padres’ resident contact king looks like a hitter caught between his strengths and his stubbornness. Until he flips the switch back to early-count aggression, fans may need to brace themselves for more soft grounders than laser singles.

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