BOSTON — Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Mel Ott.

Wade Boggs and Alex Rodriguez.

This is the sort of company Mookie Betts is keeping in 2018, and that’s just over the past month.

The ever-growing list of milestones for the Red Sox outfielder this season will soon come to an end. The playoffs beckon for one of the leading candidates in the race for the American League Most Valuable Player award. There will be time during the winter to fully appreciate what Betts has done in his fourth full season in the big leagues.

Sentences involving Betts see quite a few common words here in the final days of September. “Only,” “second” or “just the” seem to accompany anything written about Betts as the 25-year-old is in the process of stamping his place on both club and baseball history.

“You kind of give yourself a pat on the back, but you still have to go out there and play the game and take care of business,” Betts said Sunday in Cleveland. “I think that’s all I really want to do. If I do good, cool – as long as we win the game.”

Boston has done plenty of that this season. The 107 victories piled up by the Red Sox are already a franchise record entering their last three-game set against the Yankees. Betts has been a key cog in what has seemed to be a well-oiled machine, producing across the board like few have in club or baseball history.

Betts stole his 30th base in the opener on Wednesday’s day-night doubleheader with Baltimore. Combined with his 32 home runs this season, he joined Jacoby Ellsbury (2011) as just the second player in Boston history to join the 30-30 club. Betts is also just one of three players in Red Sox history (Carl Yastrzemski, Dustin Pedroia) to reach 100 steals and 100 homers with the team.

“He hit 30 homers my first year here,” Red Sox pitcher David Price said. “I feel like I’ve always believed he could steal 30 bases. To do both of those in the same season and hit .345 or whatever he’s hitting right now, that’s very special.”

Betts is batting .346, and only Ellis Burks (Colorado, 1996) and Larry Walker (Colorado, 1997) have cracked the .340 mark previously while going 30-30. Both Burks and Walker benefited from a hitter’s paradise at Coors Field, with the thin air creating the ideal conditions for slugging.

“It’s just a special accomplishment,” Betts said. “It means that you can steal bases and hit some home runs too. It’s just a blessing to be a part of a group and enjoy.”

Betts is just the second Boston player to total 40 doubles, five triples and 30 home runs in a season – Williams (1939, 1947) is the other to accomplish that. Boggs counted seven straight seasons from 1985 to 1991 with at least 40 doubles, and Betts is the only other player to total as many as four straight from 2015 to 2018. Boggs lacked the speed possessed by Betts – his four straight 40-20 seasons in doubles and steals are the first of their kind in baseball history.

Boggs is a proper Hall of Famer to be sure, and the next separator for Betts comes thanks to the age at which he’s accomplishing such feats. He turns 26 on Oct. 7, and his 17 games with three or more extra-base hits top a list that includes Gehrig (14), Foxx (14), Ott (13) and Rodriguez (13). Those four men totaled 2,028 doubles, 391 triples and 2,234 home runs in their careers.

Betts surpassed Nomar Garciaparra (30, 1997) with 32 home runs out of the leadoff spot, a place in the lineup where he’s been anchored throughout the season. It’s certainly tempting to drop him a couple places and make him a run producer, but J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts have both ably performed in that role this season. Betts has served as one of the elite table setters in the game, and has scored 126 runs.

“You know the guys behind you, how their at-bats go, so you know how to go about yours,” Betts said. “It’s a comfort thing.”

“He took over,” Red Sox Manager Alex Cora said last Friday, still basking in the glow from the previous night when Boston clinched the A.L. East title with an 11-6 victory over the Yankees. “In this game it’s not easy to do that because you only have X amount of at-bats. It’s not like basketball when you know where the ball is going the last five minutes.”

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