Xander Bogaerts’ on-base streak shouldn’t have ended yesterday

San Diego Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts entered yesterday’s game with a 30-game on-base streak, which already broke the franchise record for the most consecutive games reached base to start a season (Bobby Brown’s 29 in 1983). The streak ended on Wednesday but it shouldn’t have.

In the fifth inning, Bogaerts hit a ball towards Cincinnati Reds right fielder Stuart Fairchild, who dove but wasn’t able to catch the ball in the air so it looked like Bogaerts had a single, which would’ve pushed his on-base streak to 31 games.

However, Juan Soto was on first base and he had his head down running to second base. He saw Fairchild had the ball in his glove so he ran back to first because he didn’t want to get doubled off. As he was running back to first, Bogaerts was trying to get him to run to second but he didn’t stop going to first so the Reds got an easy out when they touched second base.

In the scorebook that play went down as a fielder’s choice. MLB.com described the play like this: “Xander Bogaerts lines into a force out, right fielder Stuart Fairchild to second baseman Kevin Newman. Juan Soto out at 2nd. Xander Bogaerts to 1st.”

Don Orsillo said after the play that Bogaerts’ on-base streak continued but then said the following inning that him reaching base actually didn’t count because it went down as a fielder’s choice.

I understand why Bogaerts would lose a hitting streak in this situation because the play didn’t go down as a hit but it doesn’t make sense for him to lose his on-base streak when he literally reached base and someone else made a mistake.

I’m going to act like his on-base streak is still alive because saying that he has reached base in every game he’s played in this season is a fact.

“It’s baseball,” Bogaerts said after the game in the clubhouse. “…(Soto) didn’t want to do it on purpose, so definitely he feels that also, but I’ll get more (hits).”

Bogaerts has plenty of hits already this season (34) and we should expect those to keep on coming. The 30-year-old leads the team in hits, home runs (6), OPS (.856) and OPS+ (140).

Do you still consider Bogaerts’ on-base streak to still be alive?