Number to beat for NL batting title: .34565

Melky Cabrera is gone until at least October. But the player who was banned for a positive steroid test in mid-August could be a major figure this month. Despite missing the Giants’ final 45 games, he still could win the National League batting title. The burden falls on the Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen to hit better than the average that the cheating Cabrera has locked in.

Cabrera’s average is .346. But to be technical, the number McCutchen must beat is .34565, and he entered Saturday hitting .34263, or two hits short of that mark.

With the next-closest players being Buster Posey at .325 and Yadier Molina at .323, it doesn’t appear anyone except McCutchen can take down Cabrera, who catches a huge break from the guideline to determine a batting champ and the precedent behind it.

Cabrera has 501 plate appearances, one shy of the standard to qualify. The 502 figure is 3.1 per game over 162 games. But the guideline that establishes

that mark — Rule 10.22(a) in the Official Scorer section of the rulebook — carries an exception. It says if a player’s lead in average is sufficiently large that

enough hitless at-bats can be added to reach this requirement and the player still would have the highest batting average, he wins the title.

Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn won the seventh of his eight titles this way in 1996. He was bothered by pain in his right foot throughout that season and missed a little more than a month in midseason from what later was found to be fraying in his Achilles tendon.

Entering September, he was battling Mike Piazza and Mark Grace for the batting title. Grace went 1 for 16 in four games early in the month and wasn’t a factor. On Sept. 12, Piazza was hitting .350, only three points behind Gwynn, but slid to .336. The question for Gwynn was whether he could qualify.

Bruce Bochy had hit Gwynn third on opening day but moved him to the No. 2 spot in June. On Sept. 10, he put him in the leadoff spot, at least in part so Gwynn could get as many plate appearances as possible. He had 66 in the last 14 games but still

reached only 498, four short of the standard.

However, He was spared by Rule 10.22(a). Gwynn hit .353, but adding four hitless at-bats dropped his average only to .350, easily better than runner-up Ellis Burks’ .344.

Cabrera has 159 hits in 459 at-bats over 501 plate appearances. Giving him a hitless at-bat to reach 502, he’s at the .34565 figure. That’s the standard McCutchen must beat.

He says he isn’t watching his race against the ghost of Cabrera. “I don’t look at the stuff,” McCutchen said last week. “The only time it enters my mind is if someone asks me about it, and the only people who ask me about it are in the media.”