“He has been great all year long.”

You’ll hear that kind of compliment bestowed upon many players throughout an MLB season — and it’s often not entirely true. Not to disparage any of the game’s great hitters, but even the best of the best go through peaks and valleys over the course of 162. That’s just a fact of life as a Major League hitter.

Except for Bobby Witt Jr. in 2024.

The Royals’ superstar has indeed been great all year long. He is the only player to post a .300 average and an .800 OPS in each of the season’s first four full months (min. 90 plate appearances per month). Witt’s worst numbers in his triple-slash line at any point this year have been .290/.347/.492. His worst OPS at any point this season was .842. So even at Witt’s lowest point, he was still about 35% better than league average by OPS+.

He took things to another level in July, batting .489 over 23 games en route to being named AL Player of the Month. That average ranks 13th-best in any month since 1906.

But let’s zoom out just a little bit to include the final day of June and the first day of August, because you know what’s better than hitting .493?

Hitting .500.

That’s what Witt accomplished over that 25-game span. It was an incredible run that deserves more context. So let’s do that and also dig a little bit into how Witt was able to achieve it.

Putting Witt’s 25-game streak in context

• Witt’s hot streak (to put it lightly) contained 49 hits in 98 at-bats. He became the first player since Jose Altuve in 2017 to record a .500 or better average over a 25-game stretch in a single season (min. 90 at-bats). Only nine players have done that in the Integration Era (since 1947):

Bobby Witt Jr., 2024 Royals
Jose Altuve, 2017 Astros
Ichiro Suzuki, 2004 Mariners (four times)
Richard Hidalgo, 2000 Astros
Todd Helton, 2000 Rockies (two times)
Milt Thompson, 1987 Phillies (four times
Jose Cruz, 1984 Astros (five times)
George Brett, 1980 Royals (two times)
Stan Musial, 1958 Cardinals

• Nineteen of Witt’s 49 knocks went for extra bases (nine doubles, eight home runs and two triples), giving him an absurd .878 slugging percentage and 1.410 OPS. Of the names listed above, only Hidalgo and Helton had stretches with better numbers in both categories.

• Witt collected at least three hits in nine of those 25 games. That by itself is not historically significant, but exactly when he had some of those games is. He picked up three hits in each of his first four games after the All-Star break, going 12-for-15 in four Kansas City victories. In doing so, Witt became the first player in MLB history to register at least three hits in each of his first four games after the break, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

• Witt’s 49 hits in 25 games were the most by a Royal since Johnny Damon, who had a bunch of impressive 25-game runs in 2000, one of which contained 56 hits.

• Opposing pitchers had no answer for Witt no matter what they threw. He logged at least five at-bats against six different pitch types during the streak and hit .417 or better against all of them. He hit .475. against right-handed pitchers. Against left-handed pitchers? .611!

• Run value is a metric that takes the result of every pitch thrown and measures its impact on run scoring. Witt’s run value during the streak was +26. Not surprisingly, that was the best in baseball from June 30-Aug. 1, but that total would also rank 13th for the entire season entering Sunday, just between Gunnar Henderson (+27) and Alec Bohm (+25).

• Let’s finish this section by talking about Witt’s wins above replacement total since he is so much more than just a fantastic hitter. Thanks to sterling defense at short and smart baserunning, the 24-year-old accrued 3.2 fWAR during the streak. You are a pretty decent player if you reach 3.0 WAR over a full year, much less five weeks. Only 21 qualified batters entered Sunday with more fWAR this season than what Witt compiled in those 25 games.

How did he do it?

OK, let’s first address the elephant in the room: There is definitely some luck involved here. Again. he hit .500, so there is bound to be a dose of good fortune in the mix. But if you put a ton of balls in play, make a lot of hard contact and are arguably the fastest player in the sport, you are probably going to hit for a high average.

Witt did put just about everything he saw into play. He has improved his strikeout rate throughout his three-year career, and it’s a stellar 15.5% this season. But during those 25 games, he dropped his K rate even further, down to 10.1%. Witt had almost as many homers (eight) as strikeouts (11). From the start of the second half through the end of July, he struck out two times in 52 plate appearances.

A decrease in wasted at-bats came with an increase in ideal contact. During the streak, Witt upped his hard-hit rate (49.3% to 52.8%), line-drive rate (24.3% to 31.5%) and squared-up rate (27.9% to 30.5%). Meanwhile, his barrel rate remained the exact same: an elite 14.6%.

That matching barrel rate emphasizes this point: As sublime as Witt was from June 30-Aug. 1, he has been consistently great in 2024. He entered Sunday with the most fWAR in the Majors. He is enjoying the best season by a Royals position player not named George Brett. He leads the big leagues in runs (94) and is among the top three in extra-base hits (61) and total bases (266). With an MLB-high .344 average, Witt is on track to become the first Royals batting champion since Brett in 1990.

Of course, getting 49 hits in 98 at-bats certainly helps that cause.