Historic Chases · 2026-07-12

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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.

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 (PHI) 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.

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