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First Pitch: Possible Accomplishments During a Shortened Season

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I’ve read a few places where people discuss the validity of accomplishments during a 60-game season. The most popular one seems to be whether or not someone could finish with a .400 average and whether or not is would really be considered the first .400 season since Ted Williams in 1941.

I’m sure it could happen, especially since it’s a 60-game season and it wouldn’t need to be a 60-game run to finish with a .400 average. If someone misses a handful of games, then they would still be eligible to win the batting title. The lower the games, the easier it would be to have the hot streak required to hit .400 in a season. Whether people will accept it as a true .400 season is another thing.

The talk about the hot streak got me thinking about the top batters for the Pirates and how they did during their best 60-game streaks in 2019. It also made me think of the worst case scenario for those players and how a slump could affect them over the course of a short season.

Using games played (not team games played), I looked at five players from the 2019 team. These are really the only players worth using because everyone else is either gone this season or they didn’t play enough last year to get a good sample size. Here are the best/worst 60-game stretches for those players from 2019:

Josh Bell

Best: April 6 – June 12, .338/.403/.705, 19 HR, 57 RBI

Worst: July 3 – Sept 13, .232/.348/.444, 12 HR, 38 RBI

Adam Frazier

Best: June 28 – Sept 7, .313/.371/.498, 34 runs, 25 RBI

Worst: April 8 – June 21, .248/.303/.350, 31 runs, 13 RBI

Bryan Reynolds

Best: April 20 – June 30, .355/.417/.550, 6 HR, 28 RBI (this is also his first 60 games)

Worst: July 20 – Sept 25, .288/.342/.490, 9 HR, 31 RBI (last 60 games of season)

Kevin Newman

Best: April 6 – July 13, .328/.370/.476, 6 HR, 32 RBI

Worst: June 30 – Sept 11, .294/.344/.400, 5 HR, 26 RBI

Colin Moran

Best: May 10 – July 19, .323/.353/.510, 7 HR, 37 RBI

Worst: July 16 – September 24, .255/.308/.368, 3 HR, 31 RBI

**We will have at least four articles today, including the one you’re currently reading. If any news comes up, we will have more. The other scheduled articles for today are as follows:

This Date in Pittsburgh Pirates History – Birthdays galore, including the first man to hit a ball in the air into the water behind the right field bleachers. Also, the Jermaine Allensworth trade.

Game Rewind – Pirates make a big comeback against the eventual NL champs.

1979 Season Recap – The Pirates didn’t look like a World Series contender against the New York Mets on June 27th.

Hope everyone has an 80 grade weekend!

SONG OF THE DAY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i03Yhey8DJ4

DAILY QUIZ


RANDOM STUFF OF THE DAY

How about some magic

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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