All or nothing: With batting average .000 Pirates’ Pedro Alvarez was on WSJ sports page

Pittsburgh Pirates’ Pedro Alvarez (see photo) has been on the batting slump even on the preseason.  He was one of the two players in the entire Major League Baseball that earn the ‘distinction’ of having .000 batting average on balls in play as of April 18 and yet Alvarez got 2 home runs and the other 3.  In other words, these two players got no hit but home runs; thus “all or nothing”.  Alvarez has since got a “hit”.

The formula to calculate “batting average on balls in play” is complicated (see photo); it is (hit - home run) on the numerator, so if all your hits are home runs, your batting average is 0 or .000 (“zero”).  This same formula is also applied to the pitcher.

The WSJ said these two players have whiffed a combined 22 times in 50 plate appearance (“at bat”).  In baseball “whiff” means “strike out”.