From Strange and Curious to Downright Hard

Through games on Sunday 11 May, 2008 Mariners' second baseman Jose Lopez had a batting average that was higher than his OBP. Not only is this extremely rare, but it's really quite difficult to do. As you might imagine it requires a low number of bases on balls, but it also requires a fair number of sac flies. Lopez has both; through his first 38 games Lopez had a meager three walks while getting an inordinately high number of sacrifice flies (7). At the time of this article his OBP was .302469 and his average .302632. Even one fewer sac fly and his OBP would be .304348 or one more BB/HBP and his OBP would be .306748. It certainly is a curious situation and would probably be worth the time to take a look at BR's play index to see if this has ever happened for an entire season.