Bryan Reynolds Has Been Great in June But Needs More to Win Player of the Month

Temperatures approached 100 degrees in Pittsburgh last week and that might have been because Bryan Reynolds was playing at PNC Park.

Throughout his career, the Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder has thrived in the month of June. Since making his debut in 2019, Reynolds has slashed .347/.416/.583, by far his best numbers during any month.

Just how good is Reynolds historically in June? Thanks to a stat shared by Pirates announcer Joe Block, Reynolds now has the highest batting average of any player since World War II after going 2 for 5 for the Pirates in their win over the Reds on Tuesday night.

Even by the incredibly high standards that Reynolds has set for June play, the 29-year-old is outdoing himself.

In 22 games, Reynolds is slashing .360/.418/.663. He has seven doubles, a triple, six home runs, 16 RBIs, 15 runs scored and a stolen base.

The kicker? He has at least one hit in all 22 games played during the month. His active 22-game hitting streak is the longest by any player in Major League Baseball this season. It’s also the longest streak of Reynolds’ career.

Thanks to his performance, Reynolds has gone from having a pedestrian season through the end of May to being an All-Star candidate not even a month later.

As he entered June, Reynolds was slashing .249/.320/.402 through his first 57 games of the season. Now, he has raised his season batting average to .280 to go along with a .347 on-base percentage and a .475 slugging.

As hot as Reynolds has been this month, he needs a strong finish to take home National League Player of the Month honors.

Entering play on Wednesday, Reynolds finds himself near the top of the leaderboards in the majority of categories but is still behind several players.

Reynolds’ 1.081 OPS is fifth behind Bryce Harper (1.224), Shohei Ohtani (1.118), CJ Abrams (1.109) and Freddie Freeman (1.083).

The Pirates’ 2021 All-Star is also fifth in batting average, seventh in on-base percentage and third in slugging. His six home runs tie him for sixth and his 16 RBIs are tied with two other players for seventh.

As it stands, Harper is probably the leader to win Player of the Month in June. The Phillies first baseman leads in batting average (.390), on-base (.468) and slugging (.756) to go along with nine doubles, seven home runs and 15 RBIs.

Reynolds and Harper are tied for the National League lead in June with 32 hits apiece.

Ohtani has a strong case for second and isn’t too far behind Harper. Ohtani leads the Senior Circuit with 10 homers and 22 RBIs this month.

But Reynolds has as good of statistics as anyone else so far this month with Abrams, Freeman and a few others still conceivably in the mix.

With five more days to go in June and four more games for the Pirates, Reynolds will need to keep building his resumé until the very end.

If he’s able to extend his hitting streak to 26 games — every game played in this month — that would give him at least one unignorable advantage over any other player in the race.