Historic Chases · 2026-04-05 RECONSTRUCTED

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Nightly briefing

Baseball last night

Games of 2026-04-05

No history was made last night, but the box scores still talked: Brock Burke earned his first career save ▶︎ watch; Taylor Rashi earned his first career win.

Xavier Edwards is hitting OVER .400. Needs a .396 clip the rest of the way to finish at .400.

Xavier Edwards sits at .471 — the last .400 season was Ted Williams in 1941.

The .400 chase: Xavier Edwards went 2-for-4 last night and pushed his average up 4 points to .471. He is OVER .400.

Also last night: The Los Angeles Dodgers came back from 5 runs down to win 8-6, and the Washington Nationals blew a 5-run lead.

History movers: Drake Baldwin, after homering — Franchise Home Runs: 4 now, pace 64.8, record 54 (Matt Olson, 2023).

Sweep watch: the Dodgers swept the Nationals (3 games) — their 2nd sweep in 11 days. Our game-by-game record starts 2026-03-25, so that is a floor, not a season total. 3 other clubs were swept the same night.

The so-what: Chase DeLauter has 5 home runs through 10 team games, a 81-homer pace — 1 ahead of McGwire's 1998 total at the same point (4 of his eventual 70). That gap is the whole story: it closes, or the chase does.

That morning's stakes

What we were watching

The .400 burndown: Xavier Edwards carries a .471 average into today; a .400 finish takes a .396 clip the rest of the way (229-for-578). That is .002 easier than yesterday. A 3-for-4 tonight lowers the requirement to .394; an 0-for-4 raises it to .399.

Wild-card watch: two of the AL's three wild-card spots belong to losing records — the last of them to the Blue Jays and the Royals, level on 4-5, with the Mariners (4-6) half a game back.

On this date in 2019, Jorge Polanco hit for the cycle.

30/30 watch: CJ Abrams sits at 3 HR / 2 SB — 27 homers and 28 steals short of a 30/30 season, projecting to 54/36.

Historical intelligence

How the night stacked up

Pace through history

Chase DeLauter versus the great home-run seasons

Chase DeLauter has 5 home runs through 10 team games, 1 ahead of Mark McGwire's 1998 pace at the same checkpoint (4). Comparable chases finished with a median of 25 (95% CI 24-25); 1.5% reached 50 (1-2.2% at 95% confidence), from 1614 comparable seasons.

Retrosheet · verified play-by-play

If the pace holds

A projected top-1 season

If Chase DeLauter finishes at the current projection of 81, it would be the most home runs in any season since 1901 — no season on record has finished higher.

SABR Lahman Baseball Database · through 2025

Franchise pressure

A franchise record is under pressure

The single-season record is 54 home runs, set by David Ortiz in 2006. Wilyer Abreu projects to 54 and would tie it.

SABR Lahman Baseball Database · through 2025

Only X seasons ever

Chase DeLauter is building a rare combination

At his current pace, Chase DeLauter would reach at least .310 AVG, 60 HR, and 125 RBI. Only 4 completed seasons in the configured historical cohort reached every mark. It is the tightest of 3 statistical combinations the engine checked. The recent company includes Aaron Judge (2022), Barry Bonds (2001), Sammy Sosa (2001).

SABR Lahman Baseball Database · through 2025

Closest to .400