Posted by Jeff Lubbers on Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 12:38 am

As soon as much of the country started taking notice Ryan Zimmerman’s hitting streak has ended at 30 games. There must be something about passing the 30 game threshold that has ended 14 streaks at 30 or 31 games in the last 43 years.

(Zimmerman’s streak is the first of 30 games or more to end with a game during which he received an intentional walk since Vladimir Guerrero’s streak ended at 31 in 1999. Though walking him with first base open in the top of the seventh was a logical baseball move by the Giants, it surely adds to the thoughts of “what if?” in Zimmerman’s head. He can blame Manny Acta for giving Adam Dunn the day off, though he made a pinch hit appearance, removing the protection behind Zimmerman for the game.)

In addition to (re)establishing Zimmerman as one of the premier third basemen in the game, his streak had the added benefit of distracting fans from realizing how truly awful the Nationals have become.

In fact, no team in the past half century has wasted a hitting streak by one of its players as the Nationals have this year.

Since 1954 (the oldest year for which the baseball-reference.com Play Index has such data available) there have been 21 hitting streaks of 30 games or longer. The collective team record of the 21 players’ teams is a rather unimpressive 353-330 for a winning percentage of only .517, although only five of the teams have posted losing records. As most of us are probably aware, Zimmerman’s team falls in the losing category.

In the 30 games of Zimmerman’s hitting streak the Nationals were 10-19 (excluding the Nationals’ postponed game of May 5 against Houston) for a winning percentage of .345, which makes the Nationals the worst team of all 21 to experience a hitting streak of 30 or more games.