Yankees’ LeMahieu, Voit claim rare feat
DJ LeMahieu became the first player to win undisputed batting titles in both leagues and Juan Soto the youngest NL champion as Major League Baseball’s shortest regular season since 1878 ended Sunday.
Yankees LeMahieu and Luke Voit became the first teammates to win batting and home run titles in the same season since the Milwaukee Braves’ Hank Aaron
(.355) and Eddie Mathews (46) in 1959, and just the fifth pair of teammates to do it
Home runs were down from last year’s record level in a mini-season of diminished offense. The .245 big league batting average was the the lowest since .237 in 1968 and down from .252 last year.
Indians ace Shane Bieber finished with a 1.63 ERA, the lowest figure to lead the American League since Luis Tiant’s 1.60 for Cleveland in 1968, a year of pitching dominance that led to lowering the mound the following year.
The average time of a nine-inning game set another new high, at 3 hours, 7 minutes, 46 seconds, up from 3:05:35 last year. While a three-batter minimum was instituted, active rosters expanded from 25 to 28 for the 60-game season and gave managers more pitching options.
LeMahieu hit .364 for the New York Yankees, the highest for an AL batting champion since Minnesota’s Joe Mauer hit .365 in 2009 and well ahead of 2019 AL batting champion Tim Anderson
of the Chicago White Sox, who finished second at .322. LeMahieu won the NL batting title with Colorado in 2016.
Voit joined Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Alex Rodriguez as New York Yankees to top the majors in home runs. Voit’s total of 22 was the fewest for a major league leader since 1918 at the end of the dead ball era but extrapolates to 59 over a full season.
BIEBER’S TRIFECTA
Bieber led the major leagues in wins, ERA and strikeouts — the pitching triple crown.
While 32 pitchers have led their individual league in all three categories since the American League began play in 1901, just 12 led the majors in all three before Bieber, which was one fewer than the 13 qualified batters who hit .400 or better in that span.
Bieber joined Johan Santana (2006) and Dwight Gooden (1985) as the only players to do it since Sandy Koufax’s retirement in 1966. Bieber will almost assuredly join Santana and Gooden in winning the Cy Young Award, as well.