Dustin Pedroia has without a doubt been the hottest hitter in baseball since June 14th. Over his past 31 games, Pedroia is putting up gaudy numbers that would make Ichiro Suzuki blush. A .444 batting average, 5 HR, 18 RBI, 13 doubles, 29 runs, a .472 on base percentage, a .667 slugging percentage and a 1.139 on-base plus slugging percentage look pretty nice to statisticians. In 23 of his last 24 games, he has hit safely. Pedroia currently has the 3rd best batting average in the American League looking up only to Ian Kinsler and Justin Morneau. Even then, their averages are only separated by .004 points. With another good game or two he could be sitting pretty on top. He also leads Major League Baseball in multi-hit games with 41. This is the same Dustin Pedroia that came into June with a batting average around .250 and in need of a major shakeup offensively.

Pedroia has one of the most unorthodox swings in the game, yet he’s only struck out 35 times in 412 at bats. So essentially, he strikes out less than 8% of the time. You can guarantee that he will at least make contact, draw a walk or get hit by a pitch 92% of the time. That’s a valuable commodity that any team would absolutely love to have in a game where being successful is getting a hit 3 times out of 10.

On his way to an easy 200 hit season, Pedroia has showed no signs of slowing down. He’s 24 years old in his second year as a regular on the Boston Red Sox. He could end up with 3,000 career hits by the time his career is over if he is able to consistently hit like this. His swing covers so much ground that you have to be optimistic about a number like that.

He’s no slouch on the defensive end either. Pedroia has great lateral quickness that allows him to make almost any play that comes within his range (4.81 range factor). He also rarely makes any errors, as he has only committed five all year, putting him in the top 6 defensive 2nd basemen.

Dustin Pedroia may only be 5′8” and 180 pounds but yes he is kind of a big deal.