Red Sox first baseman Mitch Moreland is an extra-base hitting machine

Boston Red Sox first baseman Mitch Moreland keeps cranking out extra-base hits yet seems oddly allergic to settling for singles.

Boston Red Sox fans affectionately referred to Mitch Moreland as “Two Bags” for his propensity for racking up doubles last season and the nickname has evolved into “Four Bags” now that he’s piling up home runs.

Moreland belted his 11th home run of the season during Friday night’s win over the Seattle Mariners, tying him for eighth in the majors. He’ll still hit the occasional double, tallying six so far, but his power stroke has resulted in the ball leaving the park at a far greater rate than we’ve ever seen from the veteran first baseman. Moreland’s career-high .085 HR/PA more than doubles his career rate.

While Moreland racks up the extra-base hits, he seems oddly opposed to settling for singles. It’s almost as if he spends enough time at first base playing defense that he has no interest in stopping there when he collects a hit. A staggering 68 percent of Moreland’s hits have gone for extra bases this season with a total of 17 compared to only eight singles. He joins Seattle’s Jay Bruce as the only major league hitters who currently have double-digit home runs and single-digit singles.

This naturally must be a fluke considering only 40 percent of Moreland’s career hits have gone for extra bases but we’re drifting toward the point in the season where small samples turn into trends. How did this drastic change come about?

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Moreland ranks fifth in the majors with a .345 ISO, which measures a player’s raw power by indicating how often they hit for extra bases. The formula takes the hitter’s slugging percentage and subtracts their batting average. The home run power has given Moreland a strong .566 SLG but his batting average toils away at a meager .221. He’s never been in the running for a batting title but this is a surprisingly low average even for the career .250 hitter.

Many power hitters have low batting averages because they strike out a lot, especially in this new launch angle era where many sluggers are up there hacking away at the plate. Moreland’s plummeting batting average isn’t the result of strikeouts though. His 22.3 K% is almost identical to his career rate and only a tick above the league average of 21.5.

This suggests his batting average is due for some positive regression. Moreland has been victimized by a cruel .187 BABIP, putting him ahead of only a handful of major league hitters. Sometimes when a player has an unusually low BABIP it’s their own fault – they hit too many ground balls, infield pop ups or make weak contact. That’s not the case for Moreland.

Moreland’s career .283 BABIP is much closer to league average and there’s nothing in his profile that explains this dramatic drop. His 41.9 GB% is slightly under his career rate and he’s producing a minuscule 2.7 IFFB%, per FanGraphs. Moreland is also hitting the ball harder than ever with a 54.7 Hard Hit percentage that ranks 9th in the majors, according to Baseball Savant.

This all points to reasons why Moreland should be having a career year in the batting average department, not the other way around. It appears his poor average is the result of bad luck.

Moreland isn’t going to stop churning out extra base hits, not when you consider how hard he’s hitting the ball. The balls that don’t fly over the fence have too often found their way into the gloves of awaiting defenders and that is bound to change. When it does, Moreland will see an uptick in singles and a batting average that should rise quickly toward his career rate.