Freeman falls 1 short of historic 60-double season with 0-fer on last day

Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman gave it one heck of a run but, like many others before him, came up just short of a historic 60-double season.

Freeman went 0-for-4 with a strikeout in the Dodgers' final regular-season game, leaving him with 59 two-baggers for the season. He entered the last week of the season sitting at 57 but only managed to hit two doubles over his final eight games, with the last one coming on Friday.

Although he missed out on 60, his year will still go down as one for the ages. Freeman is just the second player since World War II to hit at least 59 doubles, joining the Rockies' Todd Helton in 2000. He's also one of only 11 players to notch at least 55 two-base hits in the expansion era (since 1961), per Stathead.

Freeman's total also set a new Dodgers single-season record, breaking Johnny Frederick's mark of 52 from 1929, when the franchise was known as the Brooklyn Robins. He also became just the second Dodgers player to record 90 extra-base hits in a season, joining Babe Herman in 1930. All told, he hit .331/.410/.567 with 29 homers, 102 RBIs, 211 hits, 131 runs scored, and a career-high 23 stolen bases in 161 games for the 100-win Dodgers.

Hitting 60 doubles in a season is one of the rarest and most difficult feats to accomplish in all of baseball. It's been done just six times in MLB history, with all six instances coming during a 10-year stretch from 1926-1936. The last two players to do it were Hall of Famers Charlie Gehringer (60) and Joe Medwick (64) in 1936.

The overall single-season record is held by Earl Webb, who hit 67 doubles for the Boston Red Sox in 1931. Webb, who never hit more than 30 doubles in any of his other six seasons, was out of the majors two years after setting the record.