Freddie Freeman hits 500th double, the 10th-youngest to do so in MLB history

LOS ANGELES — Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman reached another milestone on Tuesday night. His double in the first inning at Dodger Stadium made Freeman the 65th player in major league history with 500 career doubles.

Number 500 came against Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sánchez.

Freeman reached the milestone in his second game back with the Dodgers after missing eight games while his son Max was in the intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital in Orange County.

“It’s hard to put into words what the Dodger fans have meant to us and our family in the toughest times,” Freeman said Monday night, after receiving a long standing ovation in his first at-bat. “It shows the true character of this organization’s fans, and it’s absolutely incredible.”

At 34 years, 329 days old, Freeman is the 10th-youngest player to reach 500 doubles in major league history, with those 10 the only players to achieve the milestone before turning 35.

Freeman’s 27 doubles this year are tied for sixth in the National League. He led the majors in doubles in each of the last two seasons, including smashing a Dodgers record with 59 doubles in 2023, tied for the most doubles in one season by anyone in the last 87 years. Freeman led the NL in doubles in four of the previous six seasons.

He’s on pace for 38 doubles this season, and has hit at least 40 doubles in a season five times in his career, including in each of his first two seasons in Los Angeles. To date, Babe Herman is the only player in Dodgers history with three seasons of 40 or more doubles, doing so for Brooklyn from 1929-31.

After hitting his 400th double, on July 28, 2022, Freeman got to 500 doubles 328 games later. That’s his fewest games of any of the 100-double milestone chunks during his career:

• 1-100 doubles: 489 games
• 101-200 doubles: 397 games
• 201-300 doubles: 361 games
• 301-400 doubles: 416 games
• 401-500 doubles: 328 games

Since joining the Dodgers, he’s reached the career milestones of 1,000 runs scored (May 26, 2022), 1,000 RBI (July 16, 2022), 300 home runs (May 18, 2023), 2,000 hits (June 25, 2023), and now 500 doubles.

Freeman is the active MLB leader in doubles, hits (2,225), total bases (3,798), runs scored (1,280), RBI (1,210), and extra-base hits (867).

He also has the most doubles in baseball since the start of the 2023 season, since the start of 2022, since 2021, since 2020, since 2019, since 2018, since 2017, since 2016, since 2015, since 2014, since 2013, since 2012, since 2011, since 2010, since 2009, since 2008, and since 2007. Those latter four stretches are more notable considering Freeman didn’t debut in the majors until September 2010.

Before Freeman, the last MLB player to reach 500 doubles was Nick Markakis in 2020 with the Braves. Freeman played first base for Atlanta in that game (he was 0-for-2), and did so as well when Chipper Jones hit his 500th career double in 2011. Freeman doubled in that game, the sixth of his career.

Freeman is the fourth player to hit their 500th career double while playing for the Dodgers, along with Jeff Kent (September 27, 2006), Manny Ramirez (August 30, 2008) and Jimmy Rollins (August 22, 2015).