What milestones might we see in baseball this year?

The coronavirus pandemic is going to wreak havoc on long-term baseball achievements for years to come. Obviously, anyone chasing career records took a hit from the 60-game season in 2020, and a lot of players were in and out of the lineup last season due to the virus. That also means interruptions to streaks, like Max Scherzer’s eight straight years with at least 200 strikeouts. Scherzer reached the mark again last season, but it’s still just eight out of nine seasons.

On the plus side, baseball’s lockout ended without any games having to be canceled — just a week’s worth of postponements — so anyone who needs a full season to chase history in 2022 will have a fair shot at it.

These are some of the history-making feats to be on the lookout for this season.

Miguel Cabrera, the future Hall of Famer, is coming toward the end of his career, and that means climbing up career leaderboards.

Most prominently, Cabrera enters the season tied for 33rd on the all-time hits list with Sam Rice, at 2,987 – 13 away from tying Roberto Clemente and joining one of baseball’s most exclusive clubs with 3,000 hits. Only six other members of the 500 home run club have cranked 3,000 hits: Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, Rafael Palmeiro, Albert Pujols, and Alex Rodriguez.

Cabrera also stands 18th on the career doubles list with 597, four behind Barry Bonds and also within striking distance this season of Cal Ripken Jr., Paul Molitor, Paul Waner, Aaron, and David Ortiz.

The all-time list for runs scored isn’t a super famous one, but Cabrera currently sits 73rd at 1,505, one ahead of Nap Lajoie. If he can match the 48 times he crossed the plate last year, Cabrera will wind up one behind Hugh Duffy’s 1,554 for 56th all-time, and along the way this season pass Mike Schmidt, Al Simmons, Roberto Alomar, Eddie Mathews, Wade Boggs, Sam Rice, Jeff Bagwell, Tom Brown, Adrian Beltre, Kenny Lofton, Dan Brouthers, Frankie Frisch, Manny Ramirez, George Davis, Max Carey, and Reggie Jackson.

A 20-homer season, which Justin Upton last had when he went deep 30 times in 2018, would get the former No. 1 overall pick into the top 100 all time for home runs. The other milestone that Upton is approaching, he’d just as soon not.

Upton already is seventh all-time in strikeouts, with 1,948. So, he’s just 52 whiffs away from joining the 2,000-K club, currently occupied only by Reggie Jackson, Jim Thome, Adam Dunn, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, and Andres Galarraga. This is assuredly going to happen if he stays healthy.

Nobody is even close to 300 wins these days – Justin Verlander is the closest active pitcher at 226, followed by Zack Greinke at 216 – but three of today’s greats are closing in on 200, not bad at all in this day and age of bigger rotations and more extensive bullpen use.

Max Scherzer joins the Mets at 190 career wins, one ahead of Hall of Famer Lefty Gomez on the all-time list. If he doesn’t get to 200 this season, you could say that everyone in New York would be wondering what went wrong, but we all know it’s the Mets.

Speaking of torturing the Mets, Adam Wainwright is at 184 wins entering this season, so if he repeats last year’s 17-7 showing, he’ll cross the 200-win plateau as well.

Clayton Kershaw only won 10 games last year, but he also only made 22 starts. He’s at 185 career victories, so sticking with the Dodgers in free agency gives him a better chance to get to 200 this year than if he’d gone home to Texas.

After missing all of last year with a second drug suspension that will keep him out of Cooperstown, Robinson Cano can work his way into the top 100 on the career homers list with 10, and the career RBI list with 24.

Cano also is sitting on 571 career doubles, which ranks 28th all time. Is 600 out of the question this year? Cano did have 28 two-baggers in 2019, his last full season, though that also was three years ago now. Still, it’ll take only three doubles for Cano to climb into the top 25 all time, tying Bobby Abreu and Charlie Gehringer before moving on to chase Wade Boggs (578), Cap Anson (582), Robin Yount (583), Rafael Palmeiro (585), Todd Helton (592), and Luis Gonzalez (596).

Charlie Morton led the majors with 33 games started last season, and he hit 17 batters, which tied for third in the National League. Morton has been a league leader in plunkings four times – in 2013 and 2014 with the Pirates, then in 2017 and 2018 with the Astros – and is up to 138 career hit batsmen for his career, most of any active pitcher.

Beginning this year, the Atlanta righthander is tied with Chan Ho Park for the 31st-most all-time batters hit – one more than Greg Maddux, one fewer than Kevin Brown. The career top 20 – currently shared by Bert Cunningham and Adonis Terry, a couple of 19th century workhorses – is just 10 plunks away.

The all-time record, though, is well out of reach and has been for more than a century. Gus Weyhing, who pitched for 11 teams in four leagues from 1887-1901, hit 277 batters in his career. Next most is Chick Fraser’s 216, with Randy Johnson holding the record for the live-ball era with 190 batters drilled.