The Postseason Marte Party Is One Long Hitting Streak

If there’s been one constant for the Diamondbacks during their run to the World Series, it hasn’t been dominant starting pitching or shutdown relief work, though they’ve gotten their shares of both. It’s been Ketel Marte, who has not only hit safely in all 14 of Arizona’s playoff games but also set a new postseason record on Saturday night with an 18-game hitting streak, dating back to 2017. He claimed the record by slapping a two-run eighth-inning single off Martín Pérez in Game 2.

Marte’s streak began with the 2017 NL Wild Card game, when his 3-for-5 showing against the Rockies (including starter and current Ranger Jon Gray) helped the Diamondbacks to an 11–8 win. He hit in all three games of the Division Series against the Dodgers, even homering off Clayton Kershaw, but the Diamondbacks were swept nonetheless. Six years later, the 30-year-old switch-hitter picked up where he left off, with a game-tying homer off Corbin Burnes in the NL Wild Card Series opener against the Brewers — one pitch after Corbin Carroll had homered off Burnes as well. His two-run single off Freddy Peralta in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series turned a 2–1 deficit into a 3–2 lead, sending the Diamondbacks on their merry way to their first upset of the postseason.

In the Division Series against the Dodgers, Marte opened Game 1 with a 115.7-mph line drive off Kershaw that center fielder James Outman misplayed into a double, opening the floodgates to a six-run inning and an early exit for the Hall of Fame-bound southpaw. He successfully bunted for a base hit off Bobby Miller and came around to score in the first inning of Game 2 and smashed a solo homer off Lance Lynn — one of four in the third inning — in Game 3. Highlights against the Phillies in the NLCS included his walk-off single off Craig Kimbrel in Game 3; an RBI triple that ended Aaron Nola’s night in the fifth inning of Game 6; and a double off José Alvarado that set up an insurance run in the seventh inning of Game 7. In the World Series opener, he drove in a pair of runs off Nathan Eovaldi, including the go-ahead run in the third inning via a fielder’s choice and then a double in the fifth inning that proved to be the Diamondbacks’ final run of the night.

Saturday’s hit off Pérez broke a four-way tie for the longest hitting streak in postseason history:

That’s some pretty good company. What’s more, of the top 25 streaks (including 10 that lasted 13 games), Marte has the one that stretches across the second-longest timespan. Raines began his streak with the Expos in the 1981 NLCS, continued it with the White Sox in the ’93 ALCS, and then picked it up in the ’96 AL Division Series with the Yankees.

Marte’s streak is actually longer than the longest regular-season hitting streak of his career, a 16-gamer that ran from May 16 to June 4 in 2022. He’s been exceptionally productive during this year’s postseason, hitting .333/.354/.556 and batting either second against righty starters or first against lefties. His 143 wRC+ leads the Diamondbacks, as do his 21 hits, six doubles, and 11 RBIs. Most of the damage he’s wrought has come from the left side of the plate; against righties, he’s hitting .359/.375/.615 in 40 plate appearances, and against lefties, he’s hitting .292/.320/.458 in 25 PA. That’s a switch from the regular season, where he’s generally been less effective against righties, hitting .259/.348/.479 against them compared to .313/.382/.497 against lefties.

The first thing that stands out about Marte’s postseason performance is that he’s making very hard contact from both sides of the plate, much harder than during the regular season:

Against pitchers of either hand, Marte’s postseason barrel rate is more than double his regular-season rate, though his overall quality of contact has been better against righties than lefties. When he hasn’t barreled a ball against the latter, his contact has generally been poor, fitting into under, weak, or topped bins — balls that rarely go for hits.

The second thing, which you may have picked up on with the convergence of his batting averages and on-base percentages, is that Marte has walked just twice (3.1%) in 65 PA, down from 10.9% during the regular season. A closer look shows that he’s been much more aggressive, not only in terms of pitches per plate appearances (3.40 during the postseason, down from 3.83 during the regular season) but also his plate discipline stats:

Marte’s chase rate is nearly 18 percentage points higher than in the regular season, and his overall swing rate is nearly 10 points higher. He’s chasing much more frequently against lefties (51%) than against righties (35%), but the chasing isn’t serving him well at all. On plate appearances ending on pitches outside the zone, he’s been much worse off than in the regular season:

Marte is making worse contact than usual on balls outside the zone; 88.2% are classified as under, weak, or topped. And since he’s hacking at more of those pitches outside the zone and thus walking less, his wOBA and xwOBA in that context are both way down. Thankfully for the Diamondbacks, he’s making up for it when pitches are in the zone:

Marte is hitting .500 and slugging .889 on PA that conclude with pitches in the strike zone. That puts him right up there with the big boys; he’s third in wOBA among all hitters who’ve seen at least 50 pitches in the zone this postseason:

While he can’t match the power of Alvarez or García, the man is absolutely destroying strikes. Getting back to the comparison to his regular-season performance, Marte’s postseason barrel rate on pitches in the zone has more than tripled, and his rate of poor contact is about half what it was.

As to what pitches he’s crushing and what he’s chasing, it gets rather granular if we try to break it down by handedness, even while aggregating individual pitch classifications into the fastball/breaking/offspeed groupings. For example, we have seven or fewer balls in play on the in-zone pitches from pitchers of either hand save for fastballs (four-seamers, sinkers, and cutters) from righties. A few generalities do emerge from the small samples. First, regarding pitches in the zone:

• From either side of the plate, Marte has whiffed on just one breaking or offspeed pitch inside the zone, a first-pitch slider from the Phillies’ Gregory Soto in the seventh inning of NLCS Game 4. That’s one out of 20 swings (5%).
• On fastballs in the zone, he’s whiffed on six out of 35 swings at fastballs from righties (17%) but just one out of 16 swings from lefties. Of his six strikeouts on pitches in the zone, five were from four-seamers against righties, two swinging and three looking.
• When making contact, he’s hitting .429 or higher and slugging .714 or higher against all of the pitch groups from either hand save for offspeeds from lefties, of which he’s only seen one, a changeup from the Rangers’ Cody Bradford in the seventh inning of Game 1 of the World Series; he grounded to second base.

As for pitches out of the zone:

• Of three hits Marte has collected when chasing (all singles), two have come on low inside changeups from lefties: one in the third inning of NLCS Game 4 against Cristopher Sánchez, the other the streak-extending hit against Pérez. The other was his walk-off hit against Kimbrel, a 96-mph fastball above the zone.
• His whiff rate against breaking balls outside the zone is 50% against pitchers of both hands and 70% against offspeeds from righties but just 11% (one for nine) on fastballs against righties and just 12.5% (one for eight) on offspeeds against lefties.

Again, I’ll stress that we’re dealing with small samples here, but long story short, Marte is so hot right now that nobody has had much success beating him in the zone unless he’s made subpar contact. It’s pretty crucial to get him to chase whether he connects or not, though lefties should probably pocket their changeups. If you’re not a pitcher trying to get him out, it’s all tremendously entertaining. Not only has he earned a spot in the record books, but he also has a chance to help the Diamondbacks to an unlikely championship — the ultimate Marte Party.