Here's a pretty straightforward search: streaks of consecutive games without an RBI over the last 15 years:

The leaders are:

                   StreakStart  Streak End Games    AB    R    H   2B  3B  HR  RBI  SO   BB   SB   CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Teams
+-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 Wilton Guerrero    2002-05-02  2002-09-07    56     85    3   15   2   0   0    0   20    0    3   0  .176  .176  .200  .376 CIN-MON
 Rafael Belliard    1996-05-24  1997-08-11    56    117    8   24   5   0   0    0   22    2    2   0  .205  .218  .248  .466 ATL                                         

 Tom Goodwin        2004-05-16  2004-09-30    54     75    9   15   6   0   0    0   17    6    4   0  .200  .259  .280  .539 CHC                                         

 Jesus Tavarez      1995-09-24  1996-07-14    47     87    9   21   3   0   0    0   17    3    3   1  .241  .267  .276  .543 FLA                                         

 Juan Pierre        2006-04-08  2006-05-27    45    185   21   41   6   1   0    0   18    9   15   3  .222  .262  .265  .527 CHC
 Jay Bell           2003-05-03  2003-09-28    45     87    9   15   1   0   0    0   27   12    0   0  .172  .273  .184  .457 NYM                                         

 Henry Mateo        2003-09-13  2006-08-22    43     63    2   13   2   0   0    0   15    3    3   2  .206  .242  .238  .480 MON-WSN                                     

 Cesar Crespo       2001-09-26  2004-05-13    42    107   12   19   6   1   0    0   30    9    1   2  .178  .241  .252  .493 SDP-BOS
 Jason Bates        1997-08-25  1998-06-28    42     80   12   12   2   0   0    0   22    9    0   0  .150  .244  .175  .419 COL
 F.P. Santangelo    1998-05-03  1998-06-25    42    150   17   30   5   0   0    0   29   18    2   0  .200  .314  .233  .547 MON                                         

 John McDonald      1999-07-04  2002-06-04    40     79    5   20   1   0   0    0   18    2    1   1  .253  .280  .266  .546 CLE
 Donnie Sadler      2001-05-06  2001-08-05    40    102   13   19   5   0   0    0   20   12    5   3  .186  .278  .235  .513 CIN-KCR

For this search, the player had to have at least 1 AB in each game. In some of these cases, such as Tom Goodwin, the player got just 1 AB in most games. But check out Juan Pierre's streak last year. He was a full-time player, with 185 ABs over 45 games, and didn't manage a single RBI. You know how much I've posted about NL leadoff hitters hitting in front of pitchers, and what a disadvantage that is, but still 185 ABs with no RBIs is ridiculous.

So, let's change to require the player to have at least 2 plate appearances in each game:

                   StreakStart  Streak End Games    AB    R    H   2B  3B  HR  RBI  SO   BB   SB   CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Teams
+-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 Juan Pierre        2006-04-08  2006-05-27    45    185   21   41   6   1   0    0   18    9   15   3  .222  .262  .265  .527 CHC                                         

 Eddie Perez        2002-04-13  2002-09-22    34    108    5   22   7   0   0    0   23    5    0   0  .204  .246  .269  .515 CLE                                         

 Mark Loretta       2007-07-17  2007-08-23    31    117   13   24   2   1   0    0   14   11    0   1  .205  .273  .239  .512 HOU
 Ramon Santiago     2003-04-15  2003-05-30    31    112   10   23   3   0   0    0   19   11    1   2  .205  .276  .232  .508 DET                                         

 Chris Gomez        1999-04-15  1999-06-01    29     85    4   21   4   0   0    0   21   13    1   1  .247  .354  .294  .648 SDP                                         

 Rickie Weeks       2007-06-27  2007-08-20    28     91   13   14   3   0   0    0   28   17    5   0  .154  .313  .187  .500 MIL
 Miguel Cairo       1999-08-17  1999-09-21    28    116   17   36   6   0   0    0    5    6    9   3  .310  .350  .362  .712 TBD                                         

 Walt Weiss         1995-06-07  1995-07-06    27     94    9   19   3   0   0    0   15   12    0   1  .202  .306  .234  .540 COL
 Rey Sanchez        1995-06-02  1995-06-30    27    111   12   31   6   0   0    0   12    3    0   0  .279  .298  .333  .631 CHC                                         

 Willy Taveras      2006-09-01  2007-04-14    26    108   17   25   3   1   0    0   28    8    8   3  .231  .303  .278  .581 HOU-COL                                     

 Tony Womack        2001-04-06  2001-05-13    25     97   15   19   5   2   0    0   14    8    4   2  .196  .271  .289  .560 ARI

So Juan Pierre's streak rises to the top. There's Rey Sanchez, too. I remember something about him having a historically low RBI total at some point in his career, and I assume that streak was central to that record.

Also, today on Veterans Day I just wanted to say thanks to any readers who have served or currently serve in the military. Although opinions vary on both current wars and past wars with US involvement, there is no debate that military service itself is important and challenging. Thank you.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 7:09 am and is filed under Streak Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.