This is what the season has come to... watching milestones for the players. Derek Jeter came into the last home stand at the current Yankee stadium ever, needing 9 hits to tie Lou Gehrig for most hits at Yankees stadium. Yes, it's an obscure stat, like how he recently passed Babe Ruth on the all-time hit list for the Yankees. As Steven Goldman rightly pointed out, Jeter made so many more outs doing it.
In fact Jeter has been a sub .300 hitter for most of this season through the vagaries of BABIP, so it seemed rather unlikely that he would even get his average up over .300 this late in the season. The graph above shows his BABIP movement through the seasons and you can see that he was way below his career rate until the second half of the season.Steven Goldman suggested he needed to go 22 for 65 over the last bit of the season to get there.
JETER .300 WATCH
The Yankees have 16 games to play. Jeter averages 4.04 at bats per game, giving him another 65 at bats on the season. He's presently 165 for 557, so...
If he goes 20-for-65, or .308, he will finish the season with a batting average of .297.
If he goes 21-for-65, or .323, he will finish the season with a batting average of .299.
If he goes 22-for-65, or .338, he will finish the season with a batting average of .301.
Get your hitting shoes on, Captain.
In the three games with Tampa Bay, Jeter went 9 for 11, raising his average to .306. He still has 13 games to go in the rest of the season, and if he hits the rest of the way at career norm, he'll stay above .300 for sure. I doubt he's going go all Mark Taylor and stop just because he tied Don Bradman - one of the all time wet decisions. In any case, it's a nice piece of drama, but I would have preferred it if the Yankees were playing the Post-Season.UPDATE:
I caught up with my old man today. When I pointed out to him the 9-for-11 spot by Jeter in the last 48hours he simply snorted "Too late." He's actually a lot angrier than I am about the Yankees not getting to the post-season.
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