Aaron Judge’s run for a Triple Crown ended when he fell out in Wednesday’s season finale against the Texas Rangers, but New York still managed to have a batting champion when the Mets’ second baseman Jeff McNeil survived a challenge from Freddie Freeman Los Angeles Dodgers for the National League crown.
McNeil, who is only the second Met to win a batting title, entered the home game against Washington late on Wednesday as a defensive back-up and failed to score in the 9-2 win. He finished his season with the highest average in the majors at .326, beating Freeman, who went 3-4 on the final day of the season and finished at .325. Judge, meanwhile, finished .311, which was runner-up in the American League, behind Minnesota’s Luis Arraez, who went 1-1 to finish with .316.
Mets manager Buck Showalter insisted it was his decision to keep McNeil out of the lineup before the start of Friday’s postseason against the San Diego Padres. But McNeil will no doubt take some criticism for not starting the final day with the batting title on the line, like the Mets’ Jose Reyes did in 2011 when he lost one in his first at-bat of the last game of the year Single played season and then was removed at his request for a pinch runner.
Even without McNeil making an attack, the Mets secured their 101st win of the season, the second-highest in franchise history behind the 108 the team won in 1986 en route to a World Series title.
As for Judge, his break Wednesday came as no surprise after starting 55 straight games while chasing the AL’s single-season home run record. He ended up missing the Triple Crown, but in a season that will likely earn him his first AL Most Valuable Player award, he led the majors in home runs (62), runs (133), on-base percentage (.425) , slugging percentage (.686), and total bases (391). He tied the Mets’ Pete Alonso with 131 RBI for the major league lead
In the end, Judge had 16 more home runs than the next best batter, Kyle Schwarber of the Philadelphia Phillies, which is the largest gap in a season since Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx led the majors at 17 in 1932.
Judge’s main rival for the MVP award, Los Angeles Angels’ Shohei Ohtani, only led his league in one category — strikeouts per nine innings — but he took his dual glory to the next level by becoming the first player in the Major league history has included qualifying for the leaderboards as both a pitcher (one inning per team game) and batter (3.1 plate appearances per team game). Babe Ruth made it just once, at least by modern standards, when she qualified as a batsman, but fell just over 20 innings short of qualifying for pitching leaders in 1919, his senior year with the Boston Red Sox.
In addition to the New York stars’ stellar exploits, Gerrit Cole, who broke Ron Guidry’s Yankees franchise record for strikeouts in a single season, led the majors in that category with 257. He is the first Yankee to lead the AL in strikeouts since Al Downing made it in 1964 and was the first Yankee to lead the majors since Vic Rashi tied two others for the top spot in 1951.