PITTSBURGH -- One of Bryan Reynolds’ biggest goals for the 2021 season was to do something he’d done in every season but one since his college days: Hit .300.

By the end of his four-hit performance Saturday, when he ended the Pirates' 8-6 win a homer shy of the cycle, Reynolds had comfortably jumped above that line with a .303 average. Manager Derek Shelton was asked if he was considering sitting Reynolds in Sunday’s regular-season finale to ensure that goal would be accomplished.

“Bryan and I will have a conversation about that tonight and see where he’s at, and then kind of go from there,” Shelton said.

When the lineup was set ahead of Sunday’s game, Reynolds was not in it. He did appear off the bench as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning of the 6-3 defeat for the Bucs, but he flied out to left field. His average finished at .302.

Reynolds notched the first .300 season by a Pirates hitter since … well, Reynolds in 2019 (.314). Kevin Newman also hit .308 that season, and only nine qualified Bucs batters have finished above the .300 mark in the past 10 seasons.

It’s a sharp about-face from last season, when Reynolds hit .189 -- the only time the switch-hitter has batted under .300 whether at Vanderbilt, in the Minors or in the Majors. At the outset of Spring Training, he called it a product of his timing being way off and he wasn’t going to dwell on it: “It’s water under the bridge.”

The 2021 season went much, much better, with Reynolds named to his first All-Star team. Yet he entered Saturday with a .298 average, and he hadn’t had a stretch of multiple games above .300 since late August. His goal was in jeopardy.

“It didn’t look like it was going to happen,” Reynolds said. “I was thinking about it a lot. I told myself, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

“From then on, I just kind of relaxed, and things have happened.”

Across September and October, Reynolds hit .319 with four triples -- half of his MLB lead-tying eight triples this season -- to vault himself back over the prestigious line. And in the process, he reminded everyone who he is, no matter how one hectic, shortened season turned out.

“This kid can hit,” Shelton said. “We’re seeing a guy who is a premier hitter, that right now, is really locked in at the plate.”