Historic Chases · 2026-07-16

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Nightly briefing

Baseball last night

Games of 2026-07-16

Only one game on the schedule: New York Mets 4, Philadelphia Phillies 1. Francisco Alvarez homered twice.

Kyle Schwarber (PHI) has struck out 145 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 11.1 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.

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 326 rate comparisons across 64 men on this season's leaderboards, corrected for having looked that many times.

The so-what: Kyle Schwarber has 32 home runs through 98 team games, a 53-homer pace — 11 behind McGwire's 1998 total at the same point (43 of his eventual 70). That's the number that decides whether this season becomes a chase or a footnote.

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 (32-65).

On this date in 2021, Jake Cronenworth hit for the cycle.

From nowhere: Junior Caminero (TB) is now 5th in MLB in home runs — he wasn't in the top 30 a month ago.

From nowhere: Nick Gonzales (PIT) is now 5th in MLB in batting average — he wasn't in the top 30 a month ago.

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 98 team games, 11 behind Mark McGwire's 1998 pace at the same checkpoint (43). Comparable chases finished with a median of 44; 22.1% reached 50 and 1.6% reached 60 (n=122).

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 8.37 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