With an infield hit in the top of the seventh inning in Saturday’s 10-2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, Jeff McNeil recorded his 100th career hit and set a franchise record for fewest at-bats needed to do so.
The grounder came in McNeil’s 291st trip to the plate, breaking a 294-at-bat record previously held by Moises Alou. Alou of course owns the team record for longest hitting streak with 30 games, and finished a blistering 2007 with a .341 batting average – albeit in 87 games. Alou finished his career with over 2,000 career hits and an .885 OPS en route to six All-Star Game nominations.
In 75 plate appearances in 2019, McNeil is hitting .388/.453/.493 with nine runs scored and 10 batted in. His average currently ranks fourth in the major leagues (second in the National League behind Cody Bellinger), and his 9.3% strikeout rate is the sixth-lowest in the game.
In 82 games since his debut on July 26, McNeil is tied with Mitch Haniger for the fourth-most hits in the majors with 99 and with a .340 batting average. He had previously set a Mets’ record for the most hits through 80 games,
He’s already accumulated a 0.7 bWAR and 0.8 fWAR, reaching base at least once in 16 of his 17 starts this season. In fact, he hasn’t had consecutive hitless games since August 11-12 of last year, and already has 29 multi-hit games under his belt.
