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Ivan Melendez etches name in record books with 17-game hitting streak
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AUSTIN (KXAN) — After a slow start to his season for the Hillsboro Hops, former Texas Longhorns slugger Ivan Melendez is heating up.
On May 24, Melendez set a franchise record for the Hops — the High Single-A affiliate for the Arizona Diamondbacks — with a 16-game hitting streak. He added three more hits the night after against the Tri-City Dust Devils to extend his record to 17, and that's where it stopped.
Melendez had a stretch of seven home runs in 11 games in mid-May, including four consecutive games with a homer against the Spokane Indians. The first home run of that stretch came on May 9, and it sailed a whopping 475 feet.
In May, Melendez is hitting .310 with a .667 slugging percentage. When his hitting streak began on May 5, he was hitting .094 for the season. By May 28, his average jumped to a respectable .264 and he's sporting a terrific .910 on-base plus slugging average with seven homers and 21 RBIs in 106 at-bats.
Melendez is the Diamondbacks' No. 7 prospect according to MLB Pipeline, and while he played first base almost exclusively for the Longhorns, the Arizona organization is trying him out at third base. Nicknamed "The Hispanic Titantic," Melendez crushed a program-record 32 home runs with 214 total bases in 2022, winning every major collegiate postseason award for player of the year and helping the Longhorns get to the Men's College World Series.
This year's Longhorns squad plays Louisiana at 1 p.m. Friday in the Coral Gables regional to open the NCAA baseball tournament. No. 9 Miami is the host team and they'll take on the Maine Black Bears in the other game Friday.