Aaron Hill Records 1500th Career Hit on Friday for Giants
Aaron Hill reached a career milestone on Friday night, recording his 1500th career big league hit for the San Francisco Giants.
Aaron Hill, the San Francisco Giants’ 35-year-old utility infielder in his 13th major league season, collected his 1,500th career hit as a big leaguer on Friday. Hill, getting a rare start in place of a banged-up Joe Panik, scorched a leadoff triple in his first at-bat during the third inning against the Minnesota Twins.
The Giants are Hill’s fifth big league club in his career. He made his major league debut on May 20th, 2005 with the Toronto Blue Jays against the Washington Nationals, serving as the designated hitter and batting eighth. In his debut, Hill collected his first career hit, a triple that drove in two runs, in his second at-bat of the game. In seven seasons as a Blue Jay, Hill picked up the first 881 hits of his career.
During the 2011 season, Hill was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks, along with John McDonald, in exchange for Kelly Johnson. Even with his contract expiring following the season, he re-signed with the team and went on to spend five seasons in the desert. While there, he collected 512 more hits to bring his career total up to 1,393. His 1,000th hit came on June 29th, 2012 as part of a four-hit game in which he hit for the cycle. In his first at-bat of the day, he hit a ground-rule double off Randy Wolf to reach the century mark.
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Prior to the 2016 season, Hill was traded again, this time to the Milwaukee Brewers with Chase Anderson and Isan Diaz for shortstop Jean Segura and pitcher Tyler Wagner. He spent half a season with the Brewers, and picked up 72 more hits for 1,465 total. He was traded once more during the 2016 season, going to the Boston Red Sox while Wendell Rijo and Aaron Wilkerson went the other way. 27 more hits came in a Red Sox uniform, leaving him eight shy of the 1,500 milestone.
That brought him to San Francisco, where he signed at the beginning of 2017’s Spring Training. He made the opening day roster, helping his case by playing outfield for the first time as a major leaguer, but struggled out of the gate with his new team. A badly bruised forearm landed him on the disabled list in April, but he has hit the ball much better since his return. Some of his biggest hits as a Giant have come against his former teams.
On April 6th during his second game with San Francisco, he hit his first home run with the team, a two-run blast against the Diamondbacks. Against the Brewers, he had two pinch-hit, run-scoring doubles that broke ties late in games. On Monday, June 5th, he smoked a double down the left field line with the bases loaded, scoring a pair of runs to put the Giants up 4-2 in the eighth inning. On Thursday, June 8th, he hit another two-bagger to score Austin Slater from first in the sixth inning, snapping a 3-3 deadlock. Also, on June 3rd, he had another RBI pinch-hit, coming up with a ninth-inning hit to score a run against the Philadelphia Phillies as the Giants attempted to make a late comeback.
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Hill is the 624th player in Major League history to record 1,500 hits. He is currently 28th among active players in career hits.