Fun facts: Joe Mauer

Joe Mauer had three more hits on Thursday. He is now, for the season, 48 for 110, a neat .436 batting average.

A few fun facts ....

* If Joe Mauer went 0-for-50, he'd still be hitting .300. Seriously.

* He is hitting .507 against right-handed pitchers.

* He is hitting .492 at the Metrodome.

* He hit .414 in May, which looks like a slump, because he is hitting .632 so far in June. OK, it's just 11 at-bats this month. Still, .632?

* He has appeared in 31 games and gone hitless in five of them.

* He is about 32 plate appearances short of qualifying for the batting lead. The rule is 3.1 plate appearances per team game; the Twins as of Friday morning had played 54 games, so that works out to 167.4 PA needed at this point. Adding up Mauer's at-bats, walks, sac flies and HBP, I come up with with 135 PA.

If and when he actually shows up on the leaderboard hitting .400, we'll start getting the stories and speculation about whether he can accomplish that feat. Actually, in some math-driven corners of the Internet, that speculation has already started.