Entering tonight’s game against Milwaukee, 23-year-old Twins catcher Joe Mauer is hitting .392. The no. 1 overall pick in the 2001 draft is one of the most unique talents baseball has seen in many years. Six-foot-four-inch catchers taken out of high school are not supposed to succeed, let alone become.300-hitting, line-drive machines who walk more often than they strike out. In general, catchers who can hit this well are not supposed to be Gold Glove caliber receivers, especially not this young.

A few years ago, when they picked the hometown boy over Mark Prior, who at the time was considered the finest college pitcher ever to enter the draft, the Twins were ridiculed as provincial cheapskates. They insisted to anyone who would listen that it was a baseball decision, and right now they look pretty smart.

What everyone’s wondering these days is whether Mauer can hit .400, and statistically at least, the answer is, “Of course not.” He’s not even hitting .400 right now; he’s on pace for 580 at-bats, meaning he’d have to bat .406 over 320 at-bats the rest of the way to end the season at .400. In terms of probability, a player would have to be a true .340 hitter to even be on the radar screen as a .400 hitter, and the only hitters you can even argue are that good are Ichiro Suzuki and Albert Pujols. To top it all off, the Twins have 22 games in the second half against the White Sox and Tigers – two teams with superb pitching staffs and defenses that rank among the best in the majors.

Still, anything remarkable is always done in the face of overwhelming odds. Suzuki and Tony Gwynn may not have hit .400, but they’re not Joe Mauer. It’s so difficult an achievement that even the difference in odds between a player like Mauer and one like Suzuki is completely meaningless; neither, really, has any chance of doing it. Which is another way of saying that Mauer has as good a chance as anyone.

Looking at it this way, there are actually a few reasons to think Mauer could do it. For one, he’s a catcher. While he’s on pace for 154 games played, that number will surely drop as the summer wears on and Twins manager Ron Gardenhire looks to get his young superstar some much-needed rest. The wear-and-tear a catcher absorbs over the season will of course work against Mauer, but that might be counteracted by the fact that he’ll have a relatively low at-bats total, meaning he’ll have to get fewer hits to reach the mythic mark last attained by Ted Williams in 1941.

Mauer is one of the most disciplined hitters in baseball, having walked 106 times and struck out 105 times in his young career; that certainly doesn’t hurt him. Moreover, he’s a classic left-handed spray hitter with a surprising amount of speed for a catcher who’s already missed most of a year due to a knee injury. His home runs are line drives, not moon shots, because he has a beautiful, fluid swing. This balanced approach means he doesn’t have the large holes in his swing that all home run hitters do; other than the pitch down and away (which no one can hit, really) he doesn’t have any flaws in his plate coverage at all, and he never overswings. It’s exactly the approach a hitter needs to make any sort of run at .400.

Finally, the Twins play on turf, which also helps. Line drives move through the infield faster on the stuff, which gives infielders less time to react and increases singles totals. It’s not as large a difference as is sometimes thought, but it’s real, and is just another advantage Mauer has.

In all, he has a chance, at least more so than an equally talented right-handed, power-hitting first baseman playing on grass (hello Pujols) would have.

I’ll certainly be rooting for him, not just because I want to see someone hit .400 (it would be a lot more impressive than the latest goofy home run feat), but because someone doing so would fundamentally alter the game for the better. Baseball, like any other closed system, is afraid of change and sees a lot of imitation of success, which is one of the big reasons we see so many fat old men bashing home runs and styling and posing at home plate rather than playing baseball.

The acclamation and public worship that would greet Mauer if he managed to do what hasn’t been done since F.D.R. was in power would dwarf anything Cal Ripken, Jr., Mark McGwire, or Barry Bonds could even dream of, something that would hardly be lost on the game’s power brokers, who would surely look for ways to encourage high averages at the expense of power, just as they encouraged power at the expense of pitching during the 1990s.

Various scandals have had people looking for a way to “save baseball” for a while now. The game, which has never been more popular, doesn’t need saving, but if we’re going to pin our hopes for making it better on anyone, Joe Mauer is our man.

tmarchman@nysun.com