The Cuban baseball player Yandy Díaz continues to have one of the best seasons of his career in Major League Baseball: the first baseman and designated hitter for the Tampa Bay Rays started this Thursday as the leader in hits in the American League with 173 hits.
Before the start of the current competitive day, the 35-year-old player leads his teammate Chandler Simpson by six hits, as he is in second place with 167 hits. The also Cuban Yordan Álvarez of the Houston Astros completes the podium in third place with 164 hits.
What makes Díaz's figure even more remarkable is how close he is to his personal result: with just two more hits, he would match his own record in a Major League season —175 hits—, set in 2025, a year in which he also established personal records with 25 home runs and 83 RBIs.
The 2026 season kicked off explosively for the Cuban player. In his first six games, he accumulated 12 hits with an average of .429, two home runs, and eight runs batted in.
On July 26, he reached another milestone by connecting his 1,000th hit with the franchise of Tampa Bay, becoming only the fourth player to achieve this with the Rays.
At the beginning of August, , and by the 24th of that month, his stats were a .308 batting average, 19 home runs, and 72 runs batted in.
The accumulated statistics at the close of the regular season reflect a high-level campaign: 585 at-bats, an average of .296, 22 home runs, 81 RBIs, and 173 hits, first in the American League, according to MLB data.
Díaz was also selected for his second All-Star Game in 2026 as a designated hitter and went on to lead the American League in batting average with .325 at the beginning of July.
His contract with Tampa Bay runs through 2025 and 2026 for a total of 22 million dollars, and the Rays have already exercised an option for 2027 worth between 10 and 13 million dollars, depending on his plate appearances in the current season.
As a historical reference, the Cuban record for hits in a single MLB season is 189, achieved by José Abreu in 2017, a figure that Díaz will not reach in 2026 but which illustrates the elite level at which the player from Sancti Spíritus operates.
“At 35 years old, Yandy continues to be one of the most consistent pieces of the Rays’ offense and is fighting to finish the year as the hits champion of the junior circuit,” highlighted Pelota Cubana.
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