NEW YORK >> Strikeouts exceeded hits during a full calendar month for the first time in the Major League Baseball history.

There were 6,656 strikeouts and 6,360 hits in a cold and wet April, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Baseball has increasingly become a game of long balls and long walks — back to the dugout. Nearly one-third of plate appearances this season have ended without the ball being put in play — a walk, strikeout or hit batter.

Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred says in an email to the Associated Press that “one month is a rather small sample and we are hoping that the phenomenon of strikeouts exceeding hits is an anomaly that will not persist over the course of the season.”