Reyes on Track To Collect 204.753 Hits: July 16th

Jose Reyes just missed the 200 hit mark last year, a Quixotic joust with history which didn't quite turn out, chronicalled faithfully in my book Flushing Fever, but this year it looks like he's taking no chances. To date, July 16th, he has 115 hits in 91 scheduled games. At that rate he will end the year with 204.753 hits, a mark only a handful of stars have ever surpassed. He has only missed one game this year.

It is unlikely that any player will ever again pass George Sisler's 1920 mark of 257 hits. Lefty ODoul hit 254 in 1929 for the Phils. Al Simmons hit 253 in 1925, a close shave. Surprisingly, Darin Erstad got 240 hits for the Dodgers in 2000, tying Wade Boggs' 1985 high water mark. The player getting the most hits these days is actually Ichiro Suzuki with the Mariners. He had 224 hits last year, and already has 130 this year. At that pace he has a shot at tying the mark set by Darin Erstad and Wade Boggs at 240. Anyone who reaches that mark will have the most hits since Tommy Davis in 1962 who had 246, at the dawning of the expansion era of baseball, breaking every hits per season record since the 1920s. Too bad he wasn't a Met.