After Charlie Blackmon of the Colorado Rockies completed a stretch of six multiple-hit games in August, his batting average ballooned to .500 after 17 games. Nolan Arenado marveled at his teammate’s otherworldliness.
"The zone you dream of,” Arenado said at the time, "is the one he’s in right now.”
Blackmon’s blistering start this season — and a similar streak by D.J. LeMahieu of the New York Yankees — spurred excited speculation as to whether this pandemic-shortened season could produce the first .400 batting average since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941.