Historic Chases · 2026-06-25 RECONSTRUCTED

← 2026-06-24 All days 2026-06-26 →

Nightly briefing

Baseball last night

Games of 2026-06-25

No history was made last night, but the box scores still talked: Junior Caminero hit 3 home runs ▶︎ watch.

Kyle Schwarber has struck out 117 times, projecting to 234. Mark Reynolds' record is 223. That pace would be the most strikeouts in any season since 1901. But he's doing damage too: he leads MLB in home runs (29) — one every 10.0 at-bats. The strikeouts are the price of the power.

Also last night: The Philadelphia Phillies came back from 5 runs down to win 10-5, and the Washington Nationals blew a 5-run lead.

Sweep watch: the Cubs swept the Mets (4 games).

The so-what: Kyle Schwarber has 29 home runs through 81 team games, a 58-homer pace — 10 behind Bonds's 2001 total at the same point (39 of his eventual 73). That gap is the whole story: it closes, or the chase does.

That morning's stakes

What we were watching

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 Athletics, level on 39-42, with the Orioles (38-44) 1 1/2 games back.

On this date in 2022, 3 Astros pitchers combined for a no-hitter (one of 4 thrown on this date).

30/30 watch: Pete Crow-Armstrong sits at 17 HR / 18 SB — 13 homers and 12 steals short of a 30/30 season, projecting to 34/36.

Bobby Witt Jr. sits at 28 stolen bases — two from the 30 mark.

Historical intelligence

How the night stacked up

Pace through history

Kyle Schwarber versus the great home-run seasons

Kyle Schwarber has 29 home runs through 81 team games, 10 behind Barry Bonds's 2001 pace at the same checkpoint (39). Comparable chases finished with a median of 48 (95% CI 47-50); 39.7% reached 50 (28.1-52.5% at 95% confidence), from 58 comparable seasons.

Retrosheet · verified play-by-play

If the pace holds

A projected top-14 season

If Kyle Schwarber finishes at the current projection of 58, it would rank No. 14 among all seasons since 1901 — only 13 finished higher.

SABR Lahman Baseball Database · through 2025

Historical season twin

Whose season does Kyle Schwarber resemble?

The completed season closest to Kyle Schwarber's projected shape is Pete Alonso's 2019 (75% similarity). The match is strongest in runs, speed, average; the largest difference is run production. This is a comparison, not a forecast of how the season must finish.

SABR Lahman Baseball Database · through 2025

Closest to .400