Historic Chases · 2026-09-04

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Nightly briefing

Baseball last night

Games of 2026-09-04

Hancel Rincon made his MLB DEBUT and threw 0.1 innings and allowed 3 runs.

Overnight: Kyle Schwarber (PHI) added 1 strikeout. Schwarber has struck out 199 times, projecting to 229. Mark Reynolds' record is 223. That pace would be the most strikeouts in any season since 1901. League strikeout rates have roughly doubled since 1980, so the all-time list is not an even comparison. But he's doing damage too: he leads MLB in home runs (40) — one every 12.6 at-bats. The strikeouts are the price of the power.

No club in baseball has been hotter: the Phillies have won 21 of their last 30, 2 clear of the next club among the 30 with 30 games played. At its peak the run reached 22-8. They were 10 games under .500 on April 24 (8-18); they are 79-62 now.

The so-what: CJ Abrams (WSH) is on a 30/30 pace — 29 HR and 27 SB, projecting to 33/31. Power and speed usually live in different bodies, which is why fewer than fifty players have ever managed both in one season. Both numbers have to land — that is what makes the club so small.

Seasons on a historic footing: Jacob Misiorowski (MIL), 13.18 strikeouts per nine innings, 5th among the 9,603 qualified seasons on file, behind four seasons, led by Gerrit Cole's 13.82 in 2019; Dylan Cease (TOR), 12.72 strikeouts per nine innings, 6th.

Also last night: Jared Jones went 6.0 scoreless with 9 strikeouts ▶︎ watch; Erick Fedde went 5.0 scoreless ▶︎ watch; Yordan Alvarez (HOU) reached 300 total bases for the season.

Went deep more than once: Brayan Rocchio hit 2 home runs, driving in 5 — his first career multi-homer game ▶︎ watch; Francisco Alvarez hit 2 home runs ▶︎ watch.

Lines of the night: Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC) stole his 33rd base — one homer and seven steals from a 40/40 season; Brayan Rocchio homered from BOTH sides of the plate — and 's walk-off home run in the 9th beat the Tigers 7-6 and hit 2 home runs, driving in 5 — his first career multi-homer game; Elias Díaz hit a grand slam — and drove in 5 runs ▶︎ watch; Logan Gilbert (SEA) struck out 10 over 4.2 IP — and was tagged for four home runs over 4.2 innings — 7 runs in all ▶︎ watch; Iván Herrera's go-ahead home run in the 9th put the Cardinals ahead for good in a 7-6 win over the Rockies ▶︎ watch.

What changed from last season: Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC) — walk rate up from 4.7% to 11.9% (29 in 620 plate appearances in 2025, 74 in 621 this season); Jackson Merrill (SD) — stolen bases up from 1 in 115 games in 2025 to 24 in 138 this season; Nolan Arenado (AZ) — strikeout rate up from 12.2% to 22.8% (49 in 401 at-bats in 2025, 105 in 460 this season); Taylor Ward (SEA) — home-run rate down from 6.2% to 1.4% (36 in 579 at-bats in 2025, 7 in 484 this season). 4 of 814 rate comparisons across 157 qualified hitters and pitchers, corrected for having looked that many times.

Milestones reached last night: Miguel Vargas (CWS) reached 30 HR; Colson Montgomery (CWS) reached 30 HR.

That morning's stakes

What we were watching

The hot hand: Lawrence Butler brings a 13-game hitting streak into tonight. Streaks get interesting at 20 and historic at 30. Also alive: Tyler Soderstrom (11).

Year-over-year: the Braves are 84-57 — 21 wins ahead of where they stood on this date last season (63-77).

Behind the plate: Doug Eddings leads the board at 97.8% on 138 calls; Adrian Johnson sits last (90.6%).

The stretch run — 143 team games down, the crowns are in play. AL HR crown: Yordan Alvarez 37, Junior Caminero (TB) 37 — pace says 42–42; a coin flip to the wire · NL Wins title: Cristopher Sánchez (PHI) 16, Chase Burns (CIN) 15 — pace says 18–17; a coin flip to the wire · AL Batting title: Yordan Alvarez .317, Chandler Simpson (TB) .311 · NL Batting title: Luis Arraez (PHI) .316, Nick Gonzales (PIT) .308.

Rookie watch: Sal Stewart (CIN) has 106 RBI — the most in baseball (from a board of 54).

Franchise ladder watch: Bobby Witt Jr. (KC) sits at 122 career home runs — 2 from Danny Tartabull's 124 on the Royals' all-time list.

Tonight's matchup: Michael Harris II (ATL) came into this season 4-for-16 lifetime against Zack Wheeler with 9 strikeouts.

Tonight's matchup: Bryce Harper came into this season 2-for-16 lifetime against Martín Pérez.

The Orioles have lost 4 straight, and are 3-7 in their last 10.

The Angels have lost 3 straight, and are 4-6 in their last 10.

The Padres moved into an NL wild-card spot, pushing the D-backs out. The White Sox lead the AL Central by 2 1/2 over the Guardians.

Jared Jones: lowering his ERA to 4.46 from 4.76.

Ryan Johnson: lowering his ERA to 5.17 from 5.75.

Call-ups: Alex Cook (Rays), Daniel Espino (Guardians), Carlos Jorge (Reds), Austin Peterson (Guardians) and Jack Sinclair (Nationals) — the first of them to homer tonight would be the 277th player since 1916 to do it in his MLB debut.

The Diamondbacks activated Tommy Troy off the injured list.

The Pirates activated Konnor Griffin off the injured list.

The Cardinals scored three in the 9th to take a game they had been losing.

Last night was the Tigers' 8th loss in 10 games.

On this date in 2017, J.D. Martinez hit 4 home runs in one game — one of the rarest single-game feats in baseball.

Career milestone watch: Dylan Cease sits at 75 career wins — 25 from 100; Freddie Freeman (LAD) sits at 383 career home runs — 17 from 400.

Multi-homer machine: Alex Bregman has 3 multi-HR games (tracked since July 13).

Clean gloves: the Royals have played 17 straight errorless games. The Angels have 5.

The power outage is plural: Bryan Reynolds (15 HR) hasn't homered in 33 games; Junior Caminero (37 HR) hasn't homered in 15 games. The longest quiet stretches of their seasons are costing them the pace.

Surging: Rafael Devers (SF) has pushed his RBI pace from 86 to 100 in three weeks — 23 in 20 games where his own rate predicted 10.7. One of 74 pace comparisons run tonight.

From nowhere: Jordan Walker (STL) is now 5th of 10 on MLB's hits board — he wasn't on it a month ago, when it ran 10 deep.

Luck watch: J.T. Realmuto is hitting .222 while his batted-ball quality says .261. Statcast's verdict: the hits are coming.

Pete Crow-Armstrong sits at 39 home runs — one from the 40 mark.

Otto Lopez (MIA) sits at 29 stolen bases — one from the 30 mark.

Chris Sale (ATL), Eduardo Rodriguez (AZ), Nick Martinez (TB), Drew Rasmussen (TB), Braxton Ashcraft (PIT) and Jacob Misiorowski all sit within one of the 15-win mark (closest: 14).

Historical intelligence

How the night stacked up

Pace through history

Kyle Schwarber versus the great home-run seasons

Kyle Schwarber has 40 home runs through 141 team games, 20 behind Barry Bonds's 2001 pace at the same checkpoint (60). Comparable chases finished with a median of 44 (95% CI 43-44); 2.5% reached 50 (1-6.2% at 95% confidence), from 162 comparable seasons.

Retrosheet · verified play-by-play

Franchise pressure

A franchise record is under pressure

The Rays' single-season record is 198 hits, set by Aubrey Huff in 2003. Yandy Díaz projects to 190 and would finish 8 short.

SABR Lahman Baseball Database · through 2025

The environment matters

This is an unusual batter-strikeout climate

MLB teams are averaging 8.35 batter-strikeout events per team game. The last completed season at least this high was 2025. The stored historical peak is 8.81 in 2019.

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 Anthony Santander's 2024 (87% similarity). The match is strongest in speed, hit volume, runs; 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