As Luis Arraez flirts with .400, ex-Twins teammates admire his 'great gift'

ATLANTA – One of the nightly routines for many Twins players after games is opening the MLB app on their phones, pulling up the Marlins box score and seeing how many hits former teammate Luis Arraez produced.

Arraez, last year's American League batting champion, is hitting .399 through 73 games. He was hitting .401 after Saturday's game, the first player to carry a batting average above .400 past June 18 since Nomar Garciaparra in 2000.

"If I faced him," Twins closer Jhoan Duran said, "I don't know what I would throw to him because he puts everything in play."

Arraez's former teammates — he was traded to Miami in the offseason in a deal where the Twins got starting pitcher Pablo López — are both unsurprised he's flirting with a .400 batting average halfway through a season, but they're in awe.

It's hard to square a guy hitting around .400, even a batting champion, when they see pitchers throwing with more velocity than ever and much nastier breaking balls. It's also coming at a time when the league average batting average is .248, a 20-point drop from 17 years ago.

"We live in an era where the long ball and hitting the ball hard is what we're looking to do," said Carlos Correa, who gifted Arraez a black Louis Vuitton suitcase when he won the batting title last year. "He sticks to his plan, to his game, and he's just trying to put the ball in play. He has the talent to just manipulate it and put it where he wants it. It's a great gift."

Arraez has a long road to become the first major league player to hit .400 in a season since Ted Williams did it in 1941, but he's lapping the field this year. Atlanta's Ronald Acuña Jr. owns the next highest batting average at .328.

"He's probably got, aside from the hand-eye coordination, the best bat control that I've seen," said reliever Emilio Pagán. "You saw it even pre-shift ban. He was able to punch the ball wherever he wanted. With the stuff that pitchers have now, it's super impressive.

"People try to say players don't care about batting average and that's just not true. It's just a different game than what it was even 20 years ago."

Arraez's former teammates cite several reasons why he can do what no other hitter can do in the league. His daily routine is consistent. He almost never swings and misses. Duran pointed to his energy, not only on the field, but in his work before games.

Still, .400 is a crazy number.

"I don't know if crazy even does that justice," Byron Buxton said. "We saw what he could do last year. It's like he took that up a whole 'nother level. To be able to do what he's doing and how the game is today with rise balls, a lot of guys throwing 100 miles per hour now, I don't know. Hitting is hard. He makes it look like it's a backyard baseball game."

Pagán faced Arraez earlier this year, matchup that resulted in a six-pitch walk. In an era with detailed analytical reports, how do pitchers want to attack him?

"He's one of those guys there is not really a report for because he's super aggressive," Pagán said. "He swings at everything. Even balls out of the zone, he doesn't swing and miss. Some of the singles you're seeing the other way are 98 mph, three balls above the zone. That ball doesn't get hit. And not only is he hitting it, but he's getting hits on them. He's a guy that you just hope he hits it at somebody because he's going to hit it. You can't strike him out."

Arraez keeps in touch with many of his former teammates. Correa says he talks to him almost daily. Buxton communicates with him regularly and gives him a call when he's not mentally feeling like himself at the plate.

"I'll hit him up and he's like, 'Man, what's mental?' " Buxton said. "I'm like, 'Look, just because you're hitting .400 don't mean everyone can.' That shifts [my mindset] automatically. He's just a great guy. A great player and a great guy."