Davis Goes 0-for-54

The streak ran from September 15, 2018, to April 13, 2019. Fifty-four at-bats without a hit is the longest hitless run by a position player in major-league history. Chris Davis was in the third and fourth years of a seven-year, $161 million contract, at the time the largest in Orioles history. He hit .168 in 2018.

He retired with money from the deal still owed, much of it deferred. The at-bats are a hitting record. The contract is why the record is also a front-office entry. Baltimore paid for the hitter Davis had been, across a stretch in which he stopped getting hits at all.

A slump is ordinary. Fifty-four is the length that makes it a record. The entry keeps the number and the deal in the same sentence, because neither one, alone, is why it is filed here.