The Chris Davis hitless streak has mercifully ended

You’re probably on this website because you follow the San Francisco Giants, and if that’s the case, then you probably feel for Baltimore Orioles former-slugger Chris Davis. Davis inspires empathy from Giantsy fanbases.

He used to be great, but is now a shell of his former self. His futility is so intense that it’s almost remarkable. Endearing, if you squint.

Hey, sounds a little familiar.

But thankfully for Davis and anyone invested in the other team that wears black and orange, the streak of hitless at bats is no more. A bases loaded single in the first inning on Saturday ended his 0-for-54 streak, an MLB record for position players.

That streak was accrued over the end of last year and the beginning of this year, and I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. He was only 0-for-38 this year which . . . okay, yeah, try as I may, there are no silver linings here.

Except for Davis’ attitude. The emotional wear and tear of that futility - which came through both poor performance and horrendous luck - has to be grating. Davis was a nightly sports news segment, and not in the way you want to be.

And yet rather than hang his head, Davis took it all in stride. After finally breaking the streak, he joked on first base about saving the baseball.

If there’s another silver lining, it’s that the bubbles appear to be flowing with vim and vigor after Davis popped off the cork. He added two doubles later in the game, and finished the game with four RBI, which is more than all but three Giants have accrued all year.

Whoops, that silver line got gruesome.

After the three-hit, five-base game, Davis moved his batting average up to .079, and his slugging up to .132. He’ll try to climb out of the -0.8 bWAR hole that he’s in, which has to be at or near the record for pre-tax day futility.

The Chris Davis hitless streak is dead. Long live the Chris Davis hitless streak.