Can Murphy Hit .400?

Sooner or later someone is going to hit .400. It’s been 75 years since Ted Williams famously played both ends of a double header bumping his batting average from .400 to .406. It was the last time anyone has hit over .400 in a season. 

There have been some famous chases for that elusive .400 batting average. In 1980, George Brett was hitting .400 until September 19th. He finished the year hitting .390. In 1994, Tony Gwynn was hitting .394 until August 11th, which was also the last game of the season due to the strike. These were two Hall of Fame players, and they fell short. 

Daniel Murphy isn’t a Hall of Famer, but he’s making a charge to hit .400. A big reason why is there is no safe place to pitch him:

Right now, there’s no way to neutralize him. He’s hitting .385 off of righties and .452 off of lefties. He’s hitting .415 at home and .387 on the road. He hit .370 in April, and he’s currently hitting .441 in May. He has played in 38 games, and he’s sitting exactly at .400. Accordingly, he’s 23% of the way there. 

In 1941, Williams played in all of the Red Sox 154 games. It wouldn’t be until 1961 that MLB changed to the 162 game schedule. When Williams had played his 38th game, he was hitting .422. He was in the middle of a 16 game stretch where he hit .557 raising his average from .369 to .436. 

So Murphy is far off Williams’ pace. Murphy’s chase to .400 is further complicated by his having to face the Mets pitchers 19 times this season. With that said, as we saw last October, with Murphy, anything is possible. 

page top