Entering the 2025 season, Alabama shortstop Justin Lebron was expected to be one of the SEC’s best players and someone to watch on the national scene. Given that he made the All-SEC First Team as a freshman in 2024, those expectations were not off base.

Describing his start as living up to the hype may not quite do justice to the run the sophomore has been on since the campaign actually began.

The No. 23 Crimson Tide is 13-0 after defeating Jacksonville State on Tuesday evening. Lebron, who has eight home runs thus far, batted in four runs during the contest. He leads the entire nation in RBIs, with 32. He had five in Sunday’s game against North Dakota State.

For a two-hole hitter to produce runs at that kind of clip is remarkable. It also speaks to the proficiency of hitters around him in the lineup to get on base (which they can; No. 9 hitter Richie Bonomolo Jr. had an OBP of .593 after last weekend).

Those with an itch for arithmetic, Lebron is on pace to have approximately 138 RBIs to his name by the end of the regular season. One hundred and thirty-eight. For one player.

It is astronomically unlikely that Lebron reaches that number. Last season’s leader, Morehead State’s Roman Kuntz, had 100. The all-time record is 143 (Pete Incaviglia of Oklahoma State, 1985). Incaviglia did that in 75 games.

Lebron’s current 75-game pace for runs batted in would shatter that record; it’s 185, rounding from 184.615. His present mark, looking deeper, shows his completeness as an offensive player. He doesn’t just mash the baseball. He gets aboard. One of his RBIs on Tuesday was a bases-loaded walk. Another was from a triple.

As a defensive shortstop, his glove is one of the best in the country too. In head coach Rob Vaughn’s pack offense, though, Lebron has shown out as one of college baseball’s best offensive players.