Kansas City’s Drew Waters reacts after striking out during a game earlier this season. The major league batting average is on track to finish at .243, down from .248 last year.  Reed Hoffman/Associated Press

NEW YORK — With 100 mph fastballs no longer rarities, .300 hitters have become an endangered species.

“When I got in the league, I’d still see a lot of guys throwing 89, 91,” said Anthony Santander of the Baltimore Orioles.

Not anymore.

The major league batting average is on track to finish at .243 or .244, depending on the final weekend of the season, down from .248 last year. Three of the last four years are among the six lowest batting averages since the end of the Dead Ball Era, joined by 1967, 1968 and 1972.

The minor league average is also down, to .242 from .249 last year.

Four-seam fastballs have averaged a record 94.3 mph, up 0.1 mph from last season and 91.9 mph when tracking began in 2008.

“Reaction time is a lot less when everybody is throwing harder,” Philadelphia outfielder Nick Castellanos said. “Your intent has to be ready for a certain spot. … When a guy was 89, 91, there was more of a window to see and react.”

Just seven qualified batters were on track to hit .300 or better entering the final weekend, one more than the record low in 1968, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. That was down from nine last year, 11 in 2022 and 14 in 2021.

There were 34 in 2008 and 55 in 1999 during the Steroids Era.

Luis Arraez’s .312 average would be the lowest for an NL batting champion.

“You see electric arms all the time,” Pete Alonso of the New York Mets said. “You see guys every day that throw 97, 98, 99.”

Yet the four-seam fastball use has dropped to 31.7%, the lowest since tracking started. Cut fastballs have increased to 8% from 4.8% in 2008, and many pitchers developed larger repertoires.

“Because the technology, pitch tracking, this and that, guys now have a really good understanding of how to manipulate their breaking balls,” Alonso said. “Guys have sweepers, sliders, cutters. Used to be guys would only have one or two off-speed pitches — now they have three or four.”

Major League Baseball’s imposition of a 13-pitcher maximum on active rosters in 2022 has slowed the trend toward bullpen use. Average innings for starting pitchers dropped from 6.0 in 2011 to 5.0 in 2021, rebounding slightly to 5.2 this year.

Pitchers per team per game have risen from 3.9 from 2008-11 to 4.3 this season, down from a high of 4.4 in 2018, ’19 and ’21.

MLB hoped to increase offense by implementing limits on defensive shifts in 2023. This year’s batting average was depressed by a drop in the first month of the season: The average through April, impacted by cold weather, was .239, down from .249 through April in 2023.

“Everything’s harder, just top to bottom: Starters, bullpens. It seems like everyone’s throwing hard,” Bryan Reynolds of the Pittsburgh Pirates said. “There’s starting to pop up some places that will analyze your swing and supposedly give you the best bats for your specific swing. But pitchers definitely have more at their disposal in terms of things they can see about their pitches and things they can easily change to make each better.”

DODGERS: Shohei Ohtani is throwing so well in the wake of his second Tommy John elbow surgery that his rehabilitation team is beginning to tap the brakes.

“We’re trying to keep his velocity down because it needs to be more of a gradual thing,” Dodgers team doctor Neal ElAttrache said. “It’s not really a good idea for anyone coming back from elbow or shoulder surgery to make their return to competition in the postseason. There are no minor league games to get rehab starts for return to competition this time of year, so their first competition would be in postseason high-stress conditions. Not a good idea for the player or the team.

• Shohei Ohtani stole base No. 57 in the second inning against Colorado to pass Ichiro Suzuki for the most in a season by a Japanese-born player.

BREWERS: Outfielder Sal Frelick left the game with the New York Mets after his left side banged into the right-field wall while he tried to make a leaping catch of a foul ball.

Frelick was attempting to catch a drive from Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez that hit the side wall in foul territory. Frelick landed awkwardly after the collision with the wall down the right-field line.

FRIDAY’S GAMES

CUBS 1, REDS 0: Jameson Taillon pitched seven crisp innings in his second straight win, and Chicago won at home in the opener of a season-ending series.

Taillon (12-8) allowed four hits, struck out two and walked two on a blustery, overcast afternoon at Wrigley Field. He went 4-0 with a 1.63 ERA in the last six starts of his second year with the Cubs.

BRAVES 3, ROYALS 0: Max Fried pitched three-hit ball over 8 2/3 innings and Atlanta won at home.

Sean Murphy hit a two-run homer and Marcell Ozuna trotted home on a throwing error after his first stolen base since 2022 for the Braves.

TIGERS 4. WHITE SOX 1: Detroit clinched a spot in the playoffs with a win at home against Chicago, which set a modern major league record with its 121st loss.

The Tigers have won six straight and 10 of 11 to surge into the playoffs and eliminate Minnesota from the race.

NATIONALS 9, PHILLIES 1: Stone Garrett homered in his first major league plate appearance in more than a year in a three-hit, three-RBI effort as Washington won at home to end a four-game losing streak.

Luis García Jr., Juan Yepez and Jacob Young each had three hits, and Keibert Ruiz drove in three for Washington, which beat Philadelphia for only the third time in 11 meetings this season. It was the most runs the Nationals have scored in a game since scoring nine at Baltimore on Aug. 13.

PIRATES 4, YANKEES 2: Bryan Reynolds homered twice, including a tiebreaking two-run drive in the eighth inning that lifted visiting Pittsburgh and delayed New York from clinching home-field advantage throughout the American League playoffs.

Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s two-run single put the Yankees ahead in the fifth inning but Nick Gonzales and Bryan Reynolds hit consecutive homers off Carlos Rodón in the the sixth.