'I’ll do it next year': J-Ram's 40-40-40 bid ends with Game 162 rainout

CLEVELAND -- Over the past 24 hours, the Guardians’ coaching staff reflected on José Ramírez’s season.

Ramírez entered Sunday with 39 doubles, 39 homers and 41 steals. Maybe he could’ve gotten to 40-40-40. Maybe he wouldn’t have. But it was determined that it was best to cancel Sunday afternoon’s Game 162 between the Astros and the Guardians to make sure that all players on both rosters would stay healthy for the postseason.

After waiting in the rain for more than three hours from the originally-scheduled first pitch time at Progressive Field, it was announced that the final game of the regular season would not be played or made up due to inclement weather and less-than-ideal field conditions.

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Technically, the game wasn’t necessary for either team, considering both had already secured their respective seeds in the AL playoff bracket before Sunday, which is why Major League Baseball was able to cancel it without it needing to be made up.

And with the Royals’ win over the Braves and the Tigers’ loss to the White Sox, the Guardians will play the winner between the Astros and Tigers in their AL Wild Card Series.

But for Ramírez, it could’ve meant history.

This would’ve been quite the exclamation point on a season that Ramírez posted a .279 average, an .872 OPS and 118 RBIs, while striking out just 82 times in 158 games. And as the rain came down prior to the announcement of a delay or postponement, all Guardians manager Stephen Vogt could think about was how Ramírez had already earned the title.

Even if it didn’t say so in the record book.

“You start thinking about the four or five balls that Wilyer Abreu robbed from him over the course of that week against Boston,” Vogt said with a grin. “You think about the triple off the top of the wall in Colorado, the trip off the top of the wall the other day. We just kind of reflected over his season. He really already has it if you think about it.”

A 40-40-40 season is so rare that only one player in MLB history has done it: Alfonso Soriano in 2006. Even if Ramírez wouldn’t have gotten a double and only joined the 40-40 club, he would’ve been the seventh player to accomplish that feat, joining Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuña Jr., Soriano, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco.

Maybe it doesn’t sound as pretty, but Ramírez is still just the second player (along with Soriano) to have a 39-39-40 season.

“It’s just so special,” Vogt said. “I’ve said it all year, one of the favorite parts of this job is watching him every single day be the same person, playing the game the right way, going about his business, playing the game to win, and your numbers will be there at the end of the year.

“He is the epitome and the example of that. And it’s so great that our young players get to watch.”

The Guardians are able to see the bigger picture.

As the potential first pitch time kept getting pushed back later and later with a wetter and wetter field, the team altered its lineup to make sure its top players were protected from any injury before the playoffs. But Ramírez’s name was still there.

If a game would’ve been played, he would’ve had it no other way than to be in the lineup. But as we saw on Saturday, when Ramírez fouled a ball off his leg that required the training staff to evaluate him on the field, just one misstep could alter Cleveland’s entire postseason.

It wasn’t worth that risk.

Ramírez knows he’s heating up at just the right time. His teammates know it, too, as if there would be any doubt. He also knows that his career is far from over.

Everyone in Cleveland’s clubhouse is convinced he would’ve gotten to 40 in at least one of the two remaining categories if Game 162 would’ve happened. But ending at 39-39-40 just leaves Ramírez wanting more.

Ramírez knows he can do it. It just has to wait a few more months for him to prove it.

“He said, ‘Hey, I’ll do it next year,’” Vogt said after the cancellation. “That’s who he is.”