Most hits in a season by a pitcher??

Don Drysdale had 39 hits for the Dodgers in 1965. I looked at this article.

... if the record holder is some guy they call Babe. I don’t know for sure, but he had 317 at bats that year, and won 13 games as a pitcher. Now I am sure he played other positions that years besides pitcher, but I have no idea how many of his 95 hits that season came while playing pitcher or another position.

in 1919, he won 9 games, pitched in 133 innings, yet played in 130 games, and had 432 at bats. That season he had 139 hits and 29 home runs.

Ever notice how Zambrano physically resembles the Babe? Maybe Z should play the outfield on days he doesn’t pitch! Haha. Wouldn’t his next contract look great with numbers as 18 wins, 30 homers, and a .325 batting average. Haha… he’d have softball like stats!

... Walter Johnson. In 1925 – when he was 37, of all things – he hit .433/.455/.577, going 42-for-97. He had six doubles, a triple, 2 HR and 20 RBI.

The ML record for HR in a season by a pitcher is 9, set by Wes Ferrell in 1931, when he hit .319/.373/.621 (37-for-116) with six doubles and a triple in addition to the 9 HR, and 30 (!) RBI.

The NL record for HR by a pitcher in a season is 7, set by Drysdale in 1965. The team record is 6, set by Fergie Jenkins in 1971 and tied by Z in 2006. When Z hit the 6 HR, he had only five other hits that entire season.

The technical record holder is almost certainly a pitcher from the 1870s or 80s, when teams would A) only use one or two pitchers for the entire season and B) the drop-off between pitcher’s hitting and those of the position players wasn’t quite as pronounced.

But it was a different game then, and comparing Old Hoss Radbourn to Mike Hampton doesn’t make much sense on any level.

.... Z has 16 hits in 14 starts as a pitcher and 5 pinch-hitting appearances. He is 1-for-5 as a PH, so he has 15 hits as a pitcher. He’ll likely get 20 more starts. If he continues his average, about 1 hit per start, he’ll wind up with about 35 hits, which is quite a few. His career high, set in 2005, is 24.

Don’t know where that ranks among Cub pitchers. In 1971, when Fergie Jenkins had his 6-HR season, he had 28 hits.

Wes Ferrell had 52 hits overall and 34 pinch-hit AB’s in 1935. He was a .223 career pinch-hitter according to this article. For sake of argument, had Ferrell gotten 8 hits in his 34 pinch-hit AB’s, he still would have had 44 hits as a pitcher in 1935. I can’t verify how many of those 52 were pinch hits. I wish I knew where the Hardball Times people got the career pinch-hitting statistics.

I ran the numbers through baseball reference’s play index, using percentage of games played at pitcher to eliminate some of the misleading results. At around 80%, most of the two-way players are weeded out.

The technical record holder is in fact Old Hoss Radbourn, who had 108 hits during the 1884 season. He completed all 73 of the games that he started that year although he did play a handful of games at other positions.

The Cub record holder is Al Spalding, from the first NL season in 1876. Spalding started 60 of the teams 66 games, getting 91 hits.

The “modern” record holder is George Uhle, who had 52 hits for Cleveland in 1923. While Wes Ferrell had also had 52 hits in a season, Uhle only appeared in 4 games in which he didn’t pitch whereas Ferrell had far more pinch hit appearances. Uhle hit .361 that year and won 26 games which makes for all-around season.