Freddie Freeman keeps hitting doubles

Freddie Freeman doubled twice in Monday’s win over the Nationals, pulling him into a tie for the major league lead with 16 two-baggers on the season. With over a week left in May, the Dodgers first baseman is working on one of the most prolific doubles months in franchise history.

Leading the league in doubles isn’t a surprise for Freeman, who also led the National League with 44 doubles in 2018 and led the majors with 23 doubles in 60 games in his MVP season in 2020. He’s reached 40 doubles three times in his career.

Perhaps Freeman won’t keep up his 63-double pace, especially since the last 60-double season came in 1936. But he’s also very likely to exceed his current 12-homer pace. Maybe some of Freeman’s doubles will turn into home runs. His .624 expected slugging percentage ranks in the top three percent of MLB. Freeman’s hard-hit rate (44.5 percent) is right in line with his career numbers, and Baseball Savant has him hitting the sweet spot nearly as often (48.2 percent) as his MVP year (49.2 percent).

If Freeman doesn’t hit one out in any of the next eight days, he’s working on one of the better zero-homer months in Los Angeles Dodgers history. He’s hitting .321/.411/.494 in May, which is hard to do without any home runs. Only ten LA Dodgers have had at least a .900 OPS in a month with 50 or more plate appearances with no home runs. Mike Scioscia leads that group, thanks to his .404/.484/.500 month in April 1988, a little more than two years after the Dodgers argued in a salary arbitration hearing that Scioscia’s high on-base percentage actually hurt the team because he clogged the bases.

The driving force of Freeman’s May has been his 12 doubles this month. Babe Herman holds the Dodgers record of 16 home runs in a month, done in July 1930 for Brooklyn. The only LA Dodgers with more doubles in a single month are Corey Seager (15 doubles in August 2019) and Nomar Garciaparra (14 doubles in May 2006). Freeman has eight more chances to climb that ladder.

Twice this month Freeman hit three doubles in a game — on May 7 in the first game of a doubleheader against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, and ten days later against the Diamondbacks in the second game of a doubleheader at Dodger Stadium. Hitting doubles in a doubleheader, what a concept.

Three doubles is a Dodgers record for a single game. The only others to have two three-double games in the same season were Zack Wheat in 1910 and Pete Reiser in 1942. Freeman is the only one to do it in the same month.

Only two Dodgers have hit more doubles in the team’s first 41 games than Freeman. Jackie Robinson had 18 doubles through 41 team games in 1950, and finished with 39 doubles for Brooklyn, in a 154-game schedule. Adrián González had 17 doubles through 41 games for the 2015 Dodgers, and ended that year with 33 two-baggers.

Even if Frederick Freeman doesn’t keep up his ridiculous two-bagger pace, he’s still on his way to a large quantity of doubles this season. Keep in mind that the Dodgers record for doubles in a season is 52, by Johnny Frederick for Brooklyn in 1929. He’s the only one to get to 50 doubles, but amazingly only three other Dodgers have even hit 45 doubles in one year — Shawn Green (2003) with 49, Herman (1930) with 48, and Wes Parker (1970) with 47.

The Dodgers as a team lead the NL with 83 doubles this season, trailing only the Red Sox (91 doubles) among major league teams. The Dodgers have never averaged two doubles per game in a season before. In May, Los Angeles has 55 doubles in 21 games, an average of 2.62 per contest.

Game info

• Teams: Dodgers (28-13) at Nationals (14-29)
• Pitchers: Walker Buehler vs. Josiah Gray
• Location: Nationals Park, Washington D.C.
• Time: 4:05 p.m. PT
• TV: SportsNet LA