How would you get a strikeout of Luis Arraez?

If I wrote a story about how Luis Arraez never strikes out, I wouldn't exactly be revealing any new information. By now, the baseball world is familiar with Arraez's rarified, patented skillset. It's not a surprise that he owns four of the five lowest single-season whiff percentages in the Statcast Era, nor is it a revelation that his 7.1% Whiff% this season would be his best mark ever.

Arraez has ascended his prowess to a new level late in 2024. In seven weeks since the All-Star Break, Arraez has only struck out twice. In that same span, a player has struck out more than two times in a single game 576 times.

It's as ridiculous as it sounds. In 85 two-strike counts post-ASB, Arraez has just two swings-and-misses. Of players who have seen at least 75 two-strike pitches since the ASB, Arraez owns the lowest two-strike Whiff%, and it's not particularly close.

• Luis Arraez -- 2.5%

• Brendan Donovan -- 14.7%

• Vinnie Pasquantino -- 17.1%

• Steven Kwan -- 19.2%

• Nico Hoerner -- 19.4%

All five players run rates doubly better than the league average, yet Arraez is in his own stratosphere.

But as much as we could dwell on the feat, let's focus on the failure (if we can even call it that). What if we looked at things from the pitcher's perspective. What if you, the reader, were tasked with trying to do the impossible: Securing a strikeout of the infallible Luis Arraez.

Well, a good place to start would be with the two pitchers who have pulled off that feat in the last seven weeks... Roddery Munoz and George Soriano. In case you haven't heard of either pitcher -- and I can't blame you if you haven't -- they're right-handed hurlers hoping to stick with the basement-dwelling Marlins. Yes, those Marlins, who sold off the bulk of their pitching staff in a fire sale at this year's trade deadline.

After a solid year last season in Miami's upstart bullpen (3.81 ERA in 52 IP), Soriano has gone backwards (6.26 ERA in 23 IP) in 2024. Munoz, meanwhile, has struggled in his first taste of the big leagues (6.53 ERA in 82.2 IP), operating mostly as a back-end starter. What's most pertinent, of course, is that neither has exceptional strikeout rates:

• Munoz: 7.4 K/9

• Soriano: 9.4 K/9

The splits are even more pronounced against left-handed hitters:

Whiff Rates	Whiff%, RHB	Whiff%, LHB
MUNOZ	25.7%	21.7%
SORIANO	30%	20.9%
LEAGUE AVERAGE	25.9%	24.2%

Stikeout Rates	K%, RHB	K%, LHB
MUNOZ	19.2%	17.7%
SORIANO	23.4%	20.4%
LEAGUE AVERAGE	23%	21.9%

That leaves Munoz and Soriano significantly below league-average in generating both swing-and-miss and strikeouts against left-handed hitters, among right-handed pitchers. And yet, both managed to fan Arraez. Soriano even did so on three pitches! Munoz, meanwhile, won a gutsy, seven-pitch battle -- the sort of fight that Arraez, so good at wearing down the opposition, doesn't lose. Each pitcher also followed a similar formula to secure the strikeout, leaving us a glimpse at a blueprint to use.

The first step is the simplest, as well as the easiest: get ahead. Arraez has developed a reputation for taking the first pitch of an at-bat. He swings at the first pitch just 18.9% of the time, a rate 11% below league average. Pitchers recognize this, too. Of the first-pitch offerings that Arraez receives, 71.7% are some form of fastball. No need to get cute. Sure enough, both Soriano and Munoz poured over first-pitch fastballs for strikes.

The next step is trickier. Once he has a strike on him, Arraez bears down like no other. In these situations, he falls behind in the count 0-2 just 38.9% of the time. On average, after falling behind 0-1, a hitter will fall behind 0-2 42.4% of the time. Once again, Arraez is superior.

For the pitcher, the best bet is to induce a foul ball, considering that Arraez runs a meager 11.7% CSW on 0-1 counts. And, on paper, the best path to generate a foul ball would be to elevate velocity.

Foul Balls by Arraez on an 0-1 count, by pitch type and location

But whereas we would zig, Munoz and Soriano zagged. Munoz went with a nasty backdoor slider that seemed to buckle Arraez. Soriano just got lucky, as his elevated fastball missed the zone, but was called a strike anyway.

Once he gets to two strikes, Arraez is still domineering. His two-strike Whiff% is a measly 5.7%, which is the third-lowest mark in the pitch tracking era (since 2009). Only Jeff Keppinger (2010) and Marco Scutaro (2010) ran lower rates, at 5.5%. Maybe Arraez even catches them.

For the deathknell, Soriano and Munoz went with almost the exact same pitch. Soriano, ahead 0-2, unleashed a wicked backfoot slider that hopped to the plate. After Arrarez fouled off a high fastball and spit on an elevated changeup, Munoz went to the slider, too. According to Statcast, both pitched wound up in Zone 14.

This seems to be the two-strike formula. Of Arraez's 12 whiffs since the ASB, five have come against sliders, while three have occurred on pitches in Zone 14. Arraez's Whiff% on sliders is 18.2%, the highest on a single pitch this season. Perhaps this really is the best option -- spiking the slider and hoping that Arraez, who chases often, doesn't make contact.

Neither Soriano nor Munoz has a wipeout slider. With a 26% Whiff% to LHB, both pitchers accrue whiffs on their sliders at a rate roughly 5% less than league average. But against Arraez, each pitcher benefitted form sequencing, not dipping low into the zone until the final pitch of the at-bat.

Arraez's Chase Contact Heatmap

Arraez's Chase Heatmap

We know that Arraez chases -- it's a staple of his odd skill set -- at a rate 7% greater than the league average. But Arraez has an extraordinary chase contact rate of 88.1%, which is 31% higher than league average, and a full 8% higher than Steven Kwan, the next-closest player. That's why the heatmaps above look basically identical, except for low-and-in -- Zone 14 -- where there's a marginally larger concentration of swing and miss. So, the Arraez conundrum essentially comes down to this: With two-strikes, can you get him to chase a pitch that isn't reachable, even for the master of reaching seemingly unreachable pitches?

Two middling pitchers on a last-place team were able to crack the code.