Historic Chases · 2026-07-12

← 2026-07-11 All days 2026-07-13 →

Nightly briefing

Baseball last night

Games of 2026-07-12

Jake McCarthy (COL) hit a LEADOFF INSIDE-THE-PARK home run — years pass between one and the next.

Kyle Schwarber (PHI) has struck out 144 times, projecting to 240. 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 (32) — one every 10.9 at-bats. The strikeouts are the price of the power.

The AL Central is a coin flip: Guardians (51-46) and Sox (50-45) are even in the standings — zero games back. The Nationals' single-season record is 46 home runs, set by Alfonso Soriano in 2006. James Wood (WSH) projects to 47 and would clear it by 1.

Lines of the night: Abimelec Ortiz made his MLB DEBUT and went 1-for-2.

What changed from last season: Jackson Merrill (SD) — stolen bases up from 1 in 115 games in 2025 to 19 in 93 this season; Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC) — walk rate up from 4.7% to 11.6% (29 in 620 plate appearances in 2025, 47 in 405 this season); Junior Caminero (TB) — walk rate up from 6.4% to 13.0% (41 in 643 plate appearances in 2025, 53 in 408 this season). 3 of 332 rate comparisons across 65 men on this season's leaderboards, corrected for having looked that many times.

Sweep watch: the Red Sox swept the Mets (3 games) — their 4th sweep in 18 days. Only 11.2% of team-seasons since 1897 have swept 4 clubs inside 30 days — 340 of 3043. 6 other clubs were swept the same night.

The so-what: Kyle Schwarber has 32 home runs through 97 team games, a 53-homer pace — 10 behind Bonds's 2001 total at the same point (42 of his eventual 73). That gap is the whole story: it closes, or the chase does.

That morning's stakes

What we were watching

Tightest race: the AL Central — Guardians (51-46) and White Sox (50-45) are even in the standings, zero games back.

Wild-card watch: two of the AL's three wild-card spots belong to losing records — the last of them to the Mariners (48-49), with the Red Sox (46-48) half a game back.

Year-over-year: the White Sox are 50-45 — 18 wins ahead of where they stood on this date last season (32-64).

On this date in 2019, 2 Angels pitchers combined for a no-hitter (one of 3 thrown on this date).

30/30 watch: Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC) sits at 21 HR / 24 SB — 9 homers and 6 steals short of a 30/30 season, projecting to 35/40.

Historical intelligence

How the night stacked up

Pace through history

Kyle Schwarber versus the great home-run seasons

Kyle Schwarber has 32 home runs through 97 team games, 10 behind Barry Bonds's 2001 pace at the same checkpoint (42). Comparable chases finished with a median of 46; 27.9% reached 50 and 3.5% reached 60 (n=86).

Retrosheet · verified play-by-play

If the pace holds

A projected top-20 season

If James Wood finishes at the current projection of 149, it would rank No. 20 among all seasons since 1901 — only 19 finished higher.

SABR Lahman Baseball Database · through 2021

The environment matters

This is an unusual batter-strikeout climate

MLB teams are averaging 8.36 batter-strikeout events per team game. The last completed season at least this high was 2021. The stored historical peak is 8.81 in 2019.

SABR Lahman Baseball Database · through 2021

Closest to .400