Could Bobby Witt Jr. of Royals could be the first player in decades to hit .400 at home?

By C. Trent Rosecrans, Stephen J. Nesbitt and Sam Blum

One night earlier this summer at Kauffman Stadium, Bobby Witt Jr. batting in the ninth inning with one on, one out and his Kansas City Royals trailing by one run. He then hit a game-tying triple for his third hit of the game, raced home on a walk-off grounder and stopped running only to conduct an on-field interview. Still catching his breath, Witt grinned at the home crowd chanting his name and said, “What y’all think? Pretty nice?”

Witt, the 24-year-old All-Star shortstop, is having a sensational season. He leads the majors with a batting average of .352, and scores like both the fastest man And best defender entering the game, he joins fellow American League MVP frontrunner Aaron Judge as the only players above 8 WAR this season, and has started at shortstop and batted second in every Royals game this season.

Plus, Witt has been historically good in Kansas City: He’s on pace to become the first Major Leaguer in two decades to hit .400 at home. After going 3-for-5 on Tuesday night, Witt is hitting .405 in 281 at-bats at Kauffman Stadium this season.

Ted Williams hit over .400 at Fenway Park in 1941, 1951 and 1957. Since then, only nine batters – four from the pre-humidor days in Colorado – have hit .400 in at least 275 at-bats at home: Joe Cunningham, Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, Kirby Puckett, Andrés Galarraga, Eric Young Sr., Larry Walker, Jeff Cirillo and Barry Bonds.

Witt could soon join that shortlist.

“He’s as complete a player as you could ever imagine,” Boggs, who hit better than .400 twice at Fenway Park, said by phone this week.

“Plus strength and super speed,” Cirillo said.

“He has become a really great player in a very short time,” Carew said.

The margin itself plays a role in Witt’s pursuit of .400, just as it did with Boggs and Fenway’s Green Monster, with Puckett and the Metrodome’s AstroTurf, and with the mile-high Rockies. Kauffman Stadium has the second largest outfield in the Majors, behind Coors Field. suppress home runs but gives extra space for single, double and triple rooms. The ballpark helps maximize the bat-to-ball skill and speed that contribute to Witt’s high average, but it also dampens his home run output.

On Friday in Cincinnati, Royals infielder Michael Massey guessed that if Witt played every game on the Great American Ball Park launch pad, he would have 15 more home runs. Later that night, Witt hit his 25th homer this season, a second-deck blast that wouldn’t have happened in any Major League park. Massey was incredibly close. Witt’s Cincinnati’s projected home run total – 39 – would do wonders for his MVP case.

“I would take Bobby in any situation,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said.

But Kansas City is home. Witt will take the hit no matter what. He said his sole focus is on having the same routine and preparation whether at home or on the road. “When I have that, I feel like I’m going to be the same person every night.”

Witt’s batting average is 106 points better at home than on the road this season. That matches the home/road splits of Puckett, Boggs and Bonds, and much less difference than the .400-hitting Rockies had. Players feel more comfortable at home. (There’s a reason only one player has hit .400 on the road in the last 75 years: Ichiro Suzuki had a .405 road split in 2004.)

“When you’re at home and you’re hitting well, everything is more perfect,” Eric Young Sr. said. ‘You have your bed, cooking at home. It’s great.”

Boggs didn’t realize until this week that he had once hit .400 at home. But he wasn’t surprised. “I kind of knew it was extremely difficult to get me out at Fenway Park,” he said. Boggs has the highest career batting average at Fenway: .369. He got there by being “completely consumed” by the left field wall.

“If the wind blows, I’ve always been confident I’d get two hits that day,” he said.

Cirillo also didn’t know he would hit .400 at home. But he does remember getting hot in the final series at Coors Field in 2000.

“Glad I got a few hits so we could have a conversation,” he said.

Jeff Cirillo, pictured here in 2001, loved playing in Colorado for obvious reasons. (Tom Hauck / Allsport)

Cirillo was the fourth Rockies hitter to hit .400 in Colorado during the franchise’s first decade, and he made sure to acknowledge that it wasn’t all great reflexes and batted ball luck.

“We did it at Coors Field,” he said. “Maybe there’s a little star in there. What (Witt) is doing is absolutely incredible.”

Larry Walker hit .418 in 1998, .461 in 1999 and .406 in 2001. In 2002, a humidor was installed to quell the offense. No Rockies hitter has hit .400 at home since that change, although Todd Helton came close: .391 in 2003.

On his way to the clubhouse before games in Colorado, Cirillo walked across the immense Coors outfield. It felt to him like a links-style golf course, where you enter vast fairways.

“If you used the middle of the field,” he said, “you were never really in a slump.”

Kauffman Stadium has never felt like this. Cirillo hit .234 over 32 road games in Kansas City. “It was always very hot, so your legs felt mushy in the box,” he said. He thinks Witt’s performance is remarkable, especially considering the speed in today’s game and the way technology can help expose hitters’ shortcomings.

Boggs loved hitting in Kansas City — not because of the size, but because of the AstroTurf that was there until 1994. Not only did Boggs hit .336 at Kauffman Stadium, but that was also where he staked out his only home in the park. walk.

“It was like playing on a pool table,” Boggs said. “If you hit a ball two or three steps to the left or right of an infielder, he was through. It was that fast.” But it’s a grass field now, and even with the grass, no one hit .400 at Kauffman. When Hall of Famer George Brett hit .390 in 1980, he hit “only” .392 at home.

In the summer of 1977, Rod Carew wanted to be left alone. By early July, he had an overall batting average of .411, and reporters flocked to Minneapolis and the Twins’ road towns to talk to him. Carew had so many writers mention his hotel rooms that he started changing the name on his reservation. He asked writers to arrive extra early if they wanted an interview. When they refused, he had Twins manager Gene Mauch repeat the request.

“I didn’t want to take that .400 thing onto the field,” Carew said.

At one point, Carew stopped talking to reporters altogether. But the attention was impossible to avoid. Carew’s batting average dropped to .374 on August 25, and although he hit .441 the rest of the way, he still fell 12 points short in a .400 season. However, he did hit .401 at home.

Carew doesn’t mind journalists asking more. He loves Witt, who was born 15 years after Carew’s last major league game. The Hall of Famer has seen a few stars emerge with hitting styles that remind Carew of himself, guys like Brett, Suzuki and now Witt. They have the speed to hit infield singles. They’re on fastballs, but adapt to do damage on off-speed stuff.

Rod Carew tips his hat to fans after a double pushed his batting average to .400 in June 1977. (AP Photo/JM)

Not many reporters ask Witt if he’s hitting .400, but he still doesn’t have much to say. “You just have to go out there and throw good at-bats,” he said, “and whatever else happens, happens.” The numbers speak for themselves, and they say Witt’s season-long home run is anything but smoke and mirrors. He doesn’t get bloops and bleeds. He runs with balls and finds holes.

Witt has played 17 three-hit games in Kansas City this season, including six of seven home games in July. Today it is as difficult to average as it has been since 1968. The league-wide batting average is .244; for home teams it is .245; at Kauffman Stadium it is .259. Witt is in a different stratosphere.

Young, like a handful of other .400-at-home hitters, played against Witt’s father, pitcher Bobby Witt, during his career. He saw Bobby Jr. growing up through the game and becoming a superstar.

“He’s at a different level mentally than a lot of kids in his class,” Young said. “That’s special because he can see, play and perform a little faster than the other guys.”

In a three-hit road game on Friday, Witt became the third Royals player with 25 home runs and 25 steals in consecutive seasons, joining Carlos Beltrán and Bo Jackson.

“It’s unbelievable,” said recently acquired Royals starter Michael Lorenzen. “You see it every night on MLB Network and it makes you a little sick, to be honest, because he’s on it every night with his highlights. Then playing with him, that’s the real deal. There aren’t many people you can say that about. You can say that about Bobby. It’s the real deal.”

Witt is on pace for 11.6 fWAR, more than any shortstop in history except 1908 Honus Wagner (11.8). As the Royals bounce back from a 106-loss season and compete for the AL Central crown, their shortstop, the face of the franchise, is on show after show for the home crowd.

What do you all think? Pretty fun?

(Top photo of Witt: Ed Zurga / Getty Images)