The Giants battle the Braves with Jordan Hicks taking on Chris Sale. Hicks is superb at inducing double plays, with 12 GDPs in 49 opportunities. Sale’s pitch selection and velocities are very close to his last great season of 2019.

The Phillies and Cubs offer the best pitching matchup of the day as Zack Wheeler takes on Shota Imagana. Wheeler held batters to a .263 OBP and a .314 slugging percentage this season, with only 19 of the 73 hits against him going for extra bases. Imagana walked just 14 batters in 85 innings. This is the kind of game that teams win a well timed long ball.

Finally, the doubles watch is on from Freddie Freeman of the Dodgers as they play the Diamondbacks in Los Angeles. After his double on Tuesday, he stands at 498 doubles for his career. He would be the 65th player to reach 500 doubles, tying John Olerud and Goose Goslin.

Tris Speaker holds the record for doubles in a career with 792. With 25 doubles so far this season, Freeman could easily end the year with 520 two baggers, leaving him 272 short of the record. That’s five years of 55 doubles to break the record, six years of 46 doubles, or seven years of 39 doubles. In his age 34 season, Freeman showed no decline. He is headed for his third six fWAR season in a row; he only posted one of those in all his years with the Braves.

Freeman hit at least two doubles in a game 50 times.

I think he will need 655 doubles by the end of his age 37 season (2027) to have a shot at the record. I will say that 700 doubles would be outstanding as only four others reach that level.

Note that in the 60 game COVID season of 2020, Freeman hit 23 doubles. He might have come close to the single season record that year. If he misses the all-time record by 20 to 40 doubles, he can rightly blame COVID for his falling short.