DJ LeMahieu and Juan Soto make history with batting titles

September 28, 2020 at 1:35AM
New York Yankees DJ LeMahieu bats during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Miami Marlins, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2020, at Yankee Stadium in New York. LeMahieu is in line to win the American League batting title. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
DJ LeMahieu hit .364 for the Yankees, the highest average for an AL batting champion since Joe Mauer hit .365 in 2009. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

DJ LeMahieu became the first player to win undisputed batting titles in both leagues and Juan Soto the youngest NL champion.

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 caused baseball officials to lower the mound.

LeMahieu hit .364 for the Yankees, the highest for an AL batting champion since Joe Mauer hit .365 in 2009. LeMahieu won the NL batting title with Colorado in 2016.

He became just the fourth Yankees player to lead the majors in batting average after Lou Gehrig in 1934, Joe DiMaggio in 1939 and Mickey Mantle in 1956.

Luke Voit joined Babe Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Roger Maris and Alex Rodriguez as New York Yankees to top the majors in home runs. Voit's total of 22 extrapolates to 59 over a full season.

LeMahieu and 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.

Soto batted .351 for Washington and at 21 years, 11 months, 2 days.

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The "winners" have all been Turkeys, no matter the honor's name.

In this photo taken Monday, March 6, 2017, in San Francisco, released confidential files by The University of California of a sexual misconduct case, like this one against UC Santa Cruz Latin Studies professor Hector Perla is shown. Perla was accused of raping a student during a wine-tasting outing in June 2015. Some of the files are so heavily redacted that on many pages no words are visible. Perla is one of 113 UC employees found to have violated the system's sexual misconduct policies in rece