Could Royals' Bobby Witt Jr. 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. came to bat in the ninth inning with one on, one out and his Kansas City Royals down a run. Then he roped a game-tying triple for his third hit of the game, raced home on a walk-off grounder and only stopped running to conduct an on-field interview. Still catching his breath, Witt grinned at the home crowd chanting his name and said, “What do y’all think? Pretty fun?”

Witt, the 24-year-old All-Star shortstop, is having a sensational season. He leads the majors with a .353 batting average, rates as both the fastest man and best defender in the game, joins fellow American League MVP front-runner 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.

On top of all that, Witt has been historically good in Kansas City: he’s on track to be the first major leaguer in 20 years to bat .400 at home. After going 3-for-5 Tuesday night, Witt is hitting .401 in 276 plate appearances at Kauffman Stadium this season.

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

Witt may soon join that short list.

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

“Plus power and uber speed,” Cirillo said.

“He’s become a really great player,” Carew said, “in a really short time.”

Kansas City’s spacious Kauffman Stadium suppresses home runs but aids in base hits. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

The ballpark itself is a factor in Witt’s chase of .400, just as it was 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, suppressing home runs but giving extra space for singles, doubles and triples. The ballpark helps to maximize the bat-to-ball skill and speed that contribute to Witt’s high average, but it also mutes his home-run output.

In Cincinnati on Friday, Royals infielder Michael Massey guessed that if Witt played every game at the Great American Ball Park launching pad, he’d have 15 more homers. Later that night, Witt smashed his 25th homer this season, a second-deck blast that would’ve been out of any major league park. Massey was incredibly close. Witt’s projected home run total in Cincinnati — 39 — would do wonders for his MVP case.

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

But Kansas City is home. Witt will take the hits however they come. He said his sole focus is having the same routine and preparation, home or away. “If I have that, then I feel like I’m going to be the same guy each and every night.”

Witt’s batting average is 102 points better at home than on the road this season. That’s in line with the Puckett, Boggs and Bonds home/road splits, and far less of a differential than the .400-hitting Rockies had. Players are more comfortable at home. (There’s a reason only one player in the past 75 years has hit .400 on the road: Ichiro Suzuki had a .405 road split in 2004.)

“When you’re at home and hitting well, everything is more to perfection,” Eric Young Sr. said. “You’ve got your bed, home cooking. It’s tremendous.”

Boggs didn’t realize until this week he’d ever hit .400 at home. But he wasn’t surprised. “I sorta knew it was extremely hard to get me out at Fenway Park,” he said. Boggs has the highest career batting average at Fenway: .369. He got there by being “totally consumed” with the left-field wall.

“If the wind is blowing out, I always had the confidence that I was going to get two hits that day,” he said.

Cirillo didn’t know he’d hit .400 at home, either. But he does remember getting hot in the last series at Coors Field in 2000.

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

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

Cirillo was the fourth Rockies hitter to bat .400 in Colorado during the franchise’s first decade, and he certainly acknowledged that it wasn’t all great reflexes and batted-ball luck.

“We did it in Coors Field,” he said. “There might be a little bit of an asterisk to that one. What (Witt) is doing is absolutely incredible.”

Larry Walker hit .418 in 1998, .461 in 1999 and .406 in 2001. A humidor was installed in 2002 to tamp down offense. No Rockies hitter has hit .400 at home since that change, though Todd Helton came close — .391 in 2003.

On his way to the clubhouse before games in Colorado, Cirillo would walk across the immense Coors outfield. It felt to him like a links-style golf course, where you hit onto sprawling fairways.

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

Kauffman Stadium never felt like that. Cirillo batted .234 over 32 road games in Kansas City. “It was always really hot, so your legs felt mushy in the box,” he said. He finds Witt’s feat remarkable, especially with the velocity in today’s game and how technology can help expose hitters’ flaws.

Boggs loved hitting in Kansas City — not because of the dimensions, but because of the AstroTurf that was there until 1994. Not only did Boggs hit .336 at Kauffman Stadium, but that was where he legged out his only inside-the-park home run.

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

In the summer of 1977, Rod Carew wanted to be left alone. He had a .411 overall batting average at the start of July, and reporters were flocking to Minneapolis and the Twins’ road cities to talk to him. Carew had so many writers call his hotel rooms that he started changing the name on his reservation. He asked writers to arrive extra early at the ballpark if they wanted an interview. When they balked, he had Twins manager Gene Mauch reiterate the request.

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

At one point, Carew stopped talking to reporters altogether. But the attention was impossible to avoid. Carew’s batting average slid to .374 by Aug. 25, and even though he hit .441 the rest of the way he still fell 12 points short of a .400 season. He did, however, hit .401 at home.

Carew doesn’t mind reporters asking anymore. He likes Witt, who was born 15 years after Carew’s last major league game. The Hall of Famer has seen a few stars come along with hitting styles that remind Carew of himself, guys like Brett, Suzuki and now Witt. They have the speed to leg out infield singles. They sit on fastballs yet adjust to do damage on off-speed stuff.

Rod Carew tips his cap at fans after a double put his batting average at .400 in June of 1977. (AP Photo / JM)

There aren’t too many reporters asking Witt about hitting .400, but all the same he doesn’t have a lot to say. “You’ve got to just go out and put good at-bats,” he said, “and whatever else happens, happens.” The numbers speak for themselves, and they say Witt’s season-long home hot streak is anything but smoke and mirrors. He’s not hitting bloops and bleeders. He’s barreling balls and finding gaps.

Witt has had 16 three-hit games in Kansas City this season, including a stretch in July of six of seven home games. Today it’s as hard to hit for average as it has been since 1968. The league-wide batting average is .244; for home teams it’s .245; at Kauffman Stadium it’s .259. Witt is in another stratosphere.

Young, like a handful of other .400-at-home hitters, played against Witt’s dad, the pitcher Bobby Witt, during his career. He saw Bobby Jr. grow up around the game and mature into a superstar.

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

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

“It’s incredible,” recently acquired Royals starter Michael Lorenzen said. “You see it on MLB Network every night and you kind of get sick of it, to be honest, because he’s on it every night with his highlights. Then playing with him, it’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 11.4 fWAR, more than any shortstop in history other than 1908 Honus Wagner (11.8). As the Royals bounce back from a 106-loss season to contend for an AL Central crown, their face-of-the-franchise shortstop is putting on show after show for the home crowd.

What do y’all think? Pretty fun?

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