Chicago — Look out Adrian Beltre, Miguel Cabrera is coming for you.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Cabrera said, laughing before the game Saturday. “I don’t know if I can catch him.”
Cabrera, who had two hits Friday night, sliced an RBI double into the right field corner in the first inning Saturday. It was career hit number 3,155, breaking a tie with Royals legend George Brett and sliding him into 17th on baseball’s all-time hit list.
For good measure, he laced three more hits Saturday, the four-hit night bringing his total to 3,158. He’d already passed Tony Gwynn and is now nine hits shy of Beltre, his longtime rival and friend.
Cabrera has double-digit hit totals in each of the previous three months, so it’s not out of the question. But passing Gwynn and Brett, that’s already pretty heady stuff for Cabrera.
“Just unbelievable,” he said. “When you pass Tony Gwynn and George Brett, I mean. You see those guys early in your career and you see their numbers and you say, ‘That’s impossible. No way can I catch them.’”
Cabrera and Brett have bonded over the years. Brett made a point of being at Kauffman Stadium when the Royals honored Cabrera during his final game there.
“He’s a nice guy and he’s always been nice to me,” Cabrera said. “When I was getting close to 3,000 hits, he called me and said he’d be at my last game in Kansas City.”
Cabrera was asked if he’d seen Brett hit in his prime.
“Bro, are you talking to me or some young guy that doesn’t like baseball,” he said, laughing. “Come on, man. I’m a baseball guy, not a computer guy. When you talk about hitting, you’ve got to talk about Tony Gwynn and George Brett and Ted Williams.
“They played in another era, but the numbers they put up were unbelievable. I still look at that and it’s like, ‘Woah.’”
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter/X: @cmccosky
Tigers at White Sox
▶ First pitch: 2:10 p.m. Sunday, Guaranteed Rate Field, Chicago
▶ TV/radio: BSD/97.1
SCOUTING REPORT
▶ LHP Tarik Skubal (3-3, 3.93), Tigers: He’s coming off a strong, nine-strikeout performance against the Yankees, and through his first 10 starts of the season is on pace to post career-bests in strikeout rate (29.4%) walk rate (5%) and opponent batting average (.234). He’s also posting the best ground ball percentage of his career, 53.8. All really good things.
▶ RHP Michael Kopech (5-12, 5.08), White Sox: Since the middle of June he’s battled to regain command of his pitches. He’s averaging just 4⅓ innings in his last 12 starts, walking 51 hitters in 50⅓ innings in that stretch. He leads the America League with 84 walks. Not even close to the same pitcher who shut down the Tigers on two runs and three hits with nine punch-outs on June 4.