Victor Robles can’t stop getting hit by pitches at a painful pace

Washington Nationals rookie outfielder Victor Robles surely loves to make contact with the baseball, but the baseball also seems to love making contact with Robles, and we don’t mean his bat.

Robles has been hit by pitches 10 times in 53 games he’s played this season, and Tuesday night against the Atlanta Braves, he was plunked for the fourth consecutive game.

The dubious modern-day record seems to be six games in a row, set by Carlos Quentin in 2008. The Elias Sports Bureau noted at the time that Quentin was the first player since 1920 to be hit by a pitch in five straight games, before he then extended it to six. Robles could reach five Wednesday night when the Nationals play the Braves again.

At the rate Robles is going, he could finish the season with 29 hit-by-pitches, which amazingly might not even be the league lead. The Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo has been hit 11 times this year, placing Robles in second, and Rizzo is another man with a propensity for getting plunked — he led the majors in 2015 with 30 and in 2017 with 24.

So why is Robles a magnet for the ball? It’s always been part of his style. Robles crowds the plate and makes it difficult for pitchers to pitch inside to him without the potential to plunk him.

In fact, this was a trend for Robles in the minors, too. MASN’s Dan Kolko pointed out that counting all his professional games, major or minor league, Robles has been hit by 109 pitches in 509 games, a rate easily north of 20 percent of all games.

“I’ve always said that a pitch that hits me is not going to change my aggressiveness in how I play the game and how I go about it,” Robles, 22, said earlier this month via team interpreter Octavio Martinez. “I leave everything in God’s hands, and whatever happens, happens. But I’m not going to change the way I play.”

Remarkably, though, Robles might not come close to the single-season record of 51, set by Hughie Jennings in 1896. Even the so-called modern-day mark would be 50, owned by onetime Montreal Expos infielder Ron Hunt.