James Wood could only chuckle when presented with the news he had just become the first major leaguer to be intentionally walked four times in the same game since Barry Bonds.
“That’s pretty cool,” the Nationals left fielder. “I mean, if you’re getting put in the same sentence as him, that’s pretty cool.”
Bonds, for the record, achieved his four-intentional-walk game in 2004, at age 40, during a season in which he hit 45 homers to go along with an insane slash line of .362/.609/.812. Of his all-time-record 232 walks that year, an astonishing 120 of them were intentional. He had long since established himself as the most feared hitter in baseball by then.
Wood, on the other hand, is 22 years old. Sunday was the 163rd game of his big league career. He is only beginning to establish his place in the sport, and yet the Angels’ actions over the weekend spoke volumes about the respect he already commands.
“It stinks, because I like to watch him hit. But it’s pretty crazy that they’re already taking those measures against him,” teammate Jacob Young said. “But it makes sense. He’s carried our offense for a lot of the year, and he’s special when he’s up there.”
“Special” indeed is a word worth using to describe Wood right now. Today marks the one-year anniversary of his major league debut, and what he has already accomplished in that time stacks up favorably with almost any other young player in recent history.
Wood’s official stats through the first 162 games of his career include a .273 batting average, .367 on-base percentage and .492 slugging percentage, 32 doubles, 31 homers, 105 RBIs, 89 walks and an .859 OPS that ranks 13th among all qualified major league hitters during the same timeframe. Everyone ahead of him on the list has considerably more experience.
Now consider Wood’s stats against two other Nationals legends who debuted with comparable hype. He trails Juan Soto slightly in the rate stats (.292/.402/.519) but has hit the same number of homers with only two fewer RBIs. And his OPS+, a measure of a player’s production compared to everyone else in the league at the same time, actually tops Soto: 144 to 142.
Bryce Harper, meanwhile, had a lower on-base percentage through his first 162 games while also hitting 31 homers but driving in only 77 runs with a considerably lower OPS+ of roughly 120.
And he’s only getting better. Through the first 54 games of his career, Wood had a .783 OPS with only five homers. Through his next 54 games, he produced an .855 OPS with 13 homers. And through his last 54 games, he has delivered a .937 OPS with 13 homers.
Asked where he believes he’s grown the most over his first year in the majors, Wood pointed to his improved mental approach on a daily basis, his ability to bring the same level of attention and intensity to every plate appearance.
“That’s really it: Don’t give away at-bats or pitches,” he said. “In a game, you might not really feel it too much. But I think over 162 games, it makes a big difference. Just be consistent every single pitch.”
There’s another thing Wood has done with remarkable consistency since reaching the big leagues: He’s played every day. Though he has been removed from a handful of lopsided games late to give his body a break, he has been in Davey Martinez’s starting lineup every single day since his promotion from Triple-A Rochester.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that’s the sixth-longest streak of consecutive games played to begin a career by any player since 1961, with only Hideki Matsui (518) having started more than 231 consecutive games to begin a career?
Wood also is only 42 games shy of Ryan Zimmerman’s club record for consecutive games played at any point in a career (205). And he’s got the third-longest current streak in the majors, with only Matt Olson (701) and Pete Alonso (337) ahead of him.
“He really takes care of his body,” Martinez said. “He understands what it takes to play every day, and he comes ready to play every day.”
Though he’s proud of his durability, Wood mostly shrugs off the lack of any days taken off, citing it as his job to take the field every day, through good times and bad.
“I just think it’s part of what you sign up for,” he said. “I feel like as baseball players, you know it’s 162 games. You’ve just got to take some pride in being as available as possible every day. Luck, too. Things can happen. We’ve got a great training staff. They’ve done a great job of keeping me out there, too.”
It’s one thing to believe you can play every day, though. It’s quite another to be able to stay healthy enough to do it. And then quite another thing to be good enough to deserve the opportunity night in and night out.
“That’s a lot of body to take care of,” said Nationals closer Kyle Finnegan, who has never spent a day on the injured list during his five-plus big league seasons. “He’s young, so that helps. I remember when I was that age, you feel like you can just hop out of bed and play. But 162 starts is grueling, nonetheless.
“I think he’s just got a great mindset the way he goes about his business. He’s the same guy every day, doesn’t get too high or too low.”
There may be one more secret to Wood’s ironman streak. It has nothing to do with the physical state of his body, but everything to do with the prodigious power he possesses.
“I think the way he plays will allow him to stay on the field more,” Finnegan said with a wry smile. “If he keeps hitting it over the fence, he won’t have to run the bases much.”