The National League Batting Title is Up for Grabs
Freddy Sanchez came to Pittsburgh in a July 2003 trade deadline move from Boston and now leads the NL batting title hunt with his .346 average in 408 at-bats. The Red Sox got Brandon Lyon, Jeff Suppan, and Anastacio Martinez in return for a right-handed hitting shortstop who may be a future NL batting title holder. All three of those players are long gone from Boston and Freddy, who hit .291 last year in his first full season at age 27, has been hitting for a high average all year long and would sure look good in a Bosox uniform right now. His worst month of 2006 was July, when he still hit .301, and at one point in mid-July he was hitting .365 with a comfortable NL batting title lead. Sanchez is hitting .350 so far in August as he attempts to be the first Pirate to win the NL batting title since Bill Madlock did it in 1983.
Miguel Cabrera has been around for what seems so long that it is hard to believe this kid is only in his fourth year and is just 23 years old! Trying to become the first Florida Marlin to win an NL batting title, Cabrera, another righty, has come on as of late. 9 of his 12 August games have been multi-hit affairs; Miguel is batting an obscene .457 for the month. He has raised his average from .322 on July 30th to his current .340, with 143 hits in 420 at-bats. Add in his 18 homers and 82 runs batted in and Cabrera is a candidate for the NL MVP as well as a contender for the NL batting title.
Chipper Jones has battled with injuries this year, but has still managed to stay in the thick of the NL batting title race. In his 13th season with the Braves, the switch-hitting Jones has appeared in only 82 games in 2006, but is batting a robust .331. Jones hit .330 in 2001 when he came in fifth in the NL batting title standings, so he is capable of maintaining the high average. A 20 game hitting streak in July did not hurt Chipper’s NL batting title chances, but a strained oblique muscle sidelined him for the first dozen or so games of August. Jones has never won the NL batting title, and he would be the first Atlanta Brave to pull it off since 1991 NL MVP Terry Pendleton did it 15 years ago.
Nomar Garciaparra has not played a full season since 2003 with the Red Sox, but he has a chance to add the NL batting title to his pair of American League batting crowns from 1999 and 2000. The right-handed batting Nomar began the year on the disabled list, but when he came back he hit over .370 in May and June until a poor .215 July brought his NL batting title leading average back to earth at .327, down from .365 at the end of June. Nomar missed from July 25th to August 8th with another injury, but the first baseman has hit .385 in his five games since his return and now stands in fourth place in the NL batting title derby at .329. His career .320 average proves that Nomar, a frontrunner for Comeback Player of the Year in the NL, has what it takes to catch the NL batting title leaders down the stretch, if he stays in the line-up. One has to go back all the way to Tommy Davis in 1963 to find the last Dodger to win the NL batting title.
First baseman Albert Pujols of the Cardinals, the reigning NL MVP and a great choice to repeat that honor in 2006, would love to garner his second NL batting title. His .359 mark annexed the 2003 NL batting title, and Albert seemed a good bet earlier this year to add a second to his resume. He was hitting .346 at the end of April, but then he pulled a muscle in his side and missed three weeks in June. When he came back, his average dipped to a season low .304 on June 30th, but since then he has hit .361 in July and .373 in August. St. Louis needs the burly right-handed hitter to virtually carry them to the playoffs now that the Reds have pulled up almost besides them in the standings. Standing at .329 with 35 home runs and 93 RBI, don’t bet against Pujols surging through the final seven weeks and winning the NL batting title and the NL MVP.
Scott Hatteberg of the Reds is as unlikely an NL batting title contender as you could find. He has never batted over .300 in his previous nine full seasons in the American League, but the shift from the AL to the senior circuit has proven a favorable one for Scott. Pete Rose was the last Cincinnati player to take the NL batting title, in 1973, and the lefty swinging Hatteberg is a long shot, but stranger things have happened. A torrid .425 July and a .348 August have Hatteberg in this NL batting title fray at .328, and the Reds will need him to stay hot to keep the heat on the Cardinals.
Lance Berkman of the Astros, another switch-hitter, also has his own NL batting title aspirations. His only cold month was May when he batted .241, but a hot summer, with a .444 August average has Lance at .327 and in the NL batting title logjam. A legitimate NL MVP candidate with his 32 homers and 100 runs batted in, Berkman would be the first Houston Astro with an NL batting title if he catches everyone in front of him. Houston is only five games behind St. Louis now, despite the fact that the next highest RBI total on the team after Berkman is Morgan Ensberg with 49.
Matt Holliday, the Rockies 26 year old right-handed outfielder, is a rising star in the National League. He has the most at-bats of any of these NL batting title challengers, 445, and a .400 May offset his mediocre April and June. At .326, Holliday is still in the mix to become the fourth Colorado batter to win the NL batting title; Todd Helton, Andres Gallarraga, and Larry Walker were the other three.
Speaking of at-bats, the Braves’ Brian McCann could certainly use some. Brian is actually hitting higher than any of the NL batting title contestants are, but he lacks the number of plate appearances to qualify him for the crown at this point. His .348 average comes on 103 hits in 294 at-bats; McCann needs to average 3.7 plate appearances over Atlanta’s last 47 games to be considered for the NL batting title. That will be difficult as McCann is a catcher and will most likely need some time off. If he does get the required plate appearances and maintains his average, he would be the first catcher to win the NL batting title since Ernie Lombardi of the Boston Braves in 1942.
