$34m for nothing: Baseball star Chris Davis in epic hitting slump

Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis reacts after striking out. Photo / AP

Chris Davis is on the verge of making history, but it's the kind of which no baseball player would want a part. After an 0-for-4 outing at the plate yesterday the Orioles first baseman has now gone 44 straight at-bats without a hit, putting him within two fruitless at-bats of the MLB record.

That mark is held by former Dodgers infielder Eugenio Velez, who put together a stretch of 46 hitless at-bats between 2010 and the end of the 2011 season. That display of futility also marked the end of Velez's MLB career, but Baltimore may be more or less stuck with Davis, having signed him to a seven-year, US$161 million contract in 2016.

He's getting paid US$23m (NZ$34m) this season and will get the same amount for the remaining three years on his deal.

At the time, Davis was coming off a four-year stretch in which he batted .256 and posted an .876 OPS while hitting 159 home runs, leading the league in long balls in 2013 and 2015. But his performance has cratered since then. Over 2017 and 2018, he batted .191 with a .635 OPS and 42 home runs, and had by far the worst WAR in Major League Baseball last season - negative-2.8 - among position players with at least 100 plate appearances.

Through eight games this season, Davis has 13 strikeouts and a .148 on-base percentage to go with those .000 batting and slugging percentages. He hasn't gotten a hit since managing a Sept. 14 double off James Shields of the White Sox.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Orioles fans haven't been shy about expressing their discontent with Davis. The 33-year-old was showered with boos during a just-concluded, three-game home set against the Yankees.

"It's not something I was really expecting," Davis said after Thursday's game, an 8-4 loss to the Yankees in which he went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts. "It was tough. At the same time, I heard it a lot last year, and rightfully so.

"I've said it before, I'll say it again: I understand the frustration. Nobody's more frustrated than I am."

"I hope that he feels like he's making progress," Orioles Manager Brandon Hyde said of Davis on Sunday. "He took a couple decent passes on those fly balls. Just didn't happen."

Davis, whose .168 batting average last season was the worst in MLB history for a player eligible for the batting title, has managed two RBI this season, on a bases-loaded walk and a force out. For what it's worth, he still has a long way to go before attaining a "reverse DiMaggio," which would involve 56 straight games without a hit.

The Orioles might think about benching him for at least the next four games before they go back on the road, lest he go three more at-bats without a hit and set an ugly record in front of their home fans.

"You don't want him setting any negative records," said Zack Britton, a former Baltimore teammate of Davis's who, as a current member of the Yankees, was all too well-positioned to hear the boos during New York's three-game sweep.

"The fans want a certain product and when they don't get it, they let you know,'' the 31-year-old relief pitcher noted (via the New York Post). "We understand that's part of it.''

"We all know what kind of hitter he is," Britton added. "I believe he's going to get out of it. He's too good not to.''

"I'm seeing a guy who's giving a great effort. It's just not happening right now," Hyde said on Saturday. "We wanted to get [Davis] off to a good start. It's not the start he wanted to get off to, but I'm going to continue to play him and continue to support him and find the right matchups for him to try to get him off the schneid early."

"I would expect my manager to be behind me no matter who it was," Davis said. "Obviously, I'm going to be here for the foreseeable future and I'm a guy that's been here for a while."