Gauging the attention paid to Nolan Arenado and his hitting streak

Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports

Nolan Arenado doubled in his first at-bat Wednesday night to extend his hitting streak to 27 games. That tied the club record (previously set by Michael Cuddyer) and was the most recent step in his progression to stardom.

Sites dedicated to baseball coverage are well aware of what’s happening with Arenado by now. His emergence offensively, not to mention his elite defensive skills, have been covered extensively and wonderfully on baseball blogs across the inter-webs. If you are asking the question about when Arenado will get some serious attention, it has already happened among those who follow baseball closely.

But as we know, there is another line to cross when it comes to national attention, a line rarely crossed by the Colorado Rockies. What would it take for Arenado to get national attention on that scale? When will he stake his claim to the obligatory baseball story on Sportscenter or become one of the topics on Pardon the Interruption?

Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated believes that a long hitting streak is just the kind of story baseball needs.

For me it’s 30 games; 30 games is the mark when Arenado becomes a true national story. We should note that some of the attention has already started. Jim Rome has interviewed Arenado as well as Walt Weiss and Buster Olney had Arenado on his podcast recently.

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This is not to say we should care too much about that kind of attention since Arenado already has the respect of those who know truly know and follow baseball. I do still think it is still interesting and worth keeping track of.

If Arenado runs this streak to 30 games you might just find somebody from the Rockies on the sidebar of Sportscenter, sandwiched between NFL Draft coverage and, well, more NFL Draft coverage.