Historic Chases · 2026-09-05

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Nightly briefing

Baseball last night

Games of 2026-09-05

Trevor Story reached 200 career home runs. And it wasn't alone: Tyler Glasnow reached 1,000 career strikeouts.

Kyle Schwarber (PHI) extended his lead in home runs to 2 — 41 on the season. Schwarber has struck out 199 times, projecting to 227. 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 (41) — one every 12.4 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 80-62 now.

The so-what: CJ Abrams (WSH) is on a 30/30 pace — 29 HR and 28 SB, projecting to 33/32. Power and speed usually live in different bodies, which is why fewer than fifty players have ever managed both in one season. Power and speed in the same season is the whole story from here.

HISTORY LAST NIGHT: Zack Wheeler reached 100 career wins.

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: Parker Messick (CLE) struck out 12 over 6.0 IP ▶︎ watch; Yusei Kikuchi went 6.0 scoreless ▶︎ watch; Juan Morillo has not allowed a run in his last 12 innings.

What changed from last season: Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC) — walk rate up from 4.7% to 12.0% (29 in 620 plate appearances in 2025, 75 in 626 this season); Jackson Merrill (SD) — stolen bases up from 1 in 115 games in 2025 to 24 in 139 this season; Nolan Arenado (AZ) — strikeout rate up from 12.2% to 22.8% (49 in 401 at-bats in 2025, 106 in 464 this season); Taylor Ward (SEA) — home-run rate down from 6.2% to 1.4% (36 in 579 at-bats in 2025, 7 in 486 this season). 4 of 808 rate comparisons across 156 qualified hitters and pitchers, corrected for having looked that many times.

Found velocity: Chris Bassitt's sinker averaged 93.6 mph — his hardest start of the season, 1.8 mph over his 10-start baseline.

Lines of the night: CJ Abrams stole his 28th base — one homer and two steals from a 30/30 season; Jonathan Aranda's tiebreaking home run in the 10th put the Rays ahead for good in a 6-3 win over the Rangers ▶︎ watch; Tommy Edman's go-ahead home run in the 7th put the Dodgers ahead for good in a 6-5 win over the Nationals ▶︎ watch; Bryan Reynolds (PIT) homered for the first time since July 28, ending a 34-game drought — his 16th of the season; Jeffrey Springs allowed two hits over 7.0 scoreless innings (6 K) ▶︎ watch.

Went deep more than once: Rafael Devers (SF) and Christian Koss (SF) each hit two home runs in the same game — the first career multi-homer game for Koss ▶︎ Devers ▶︎ Koss; Riley Greene hit 2 home runs, driving in 4 ▶︎ watch.

Sweep watch: the Red Sox swept the Orioles (3 games) — their 2nd sweep in 16 days. 1 other club was swept the same night.

That morning's stakes

What we were watching

The hot hand: Lawrence Butler brings a 14-game hitting streak into tonight. The benchmarks ahead: 20 gets noticed, 30 gets a nightly countdown. Also alive: Tyler Soderstrom (11), TJ Rumfield (10).

Year-over-year: the Braves are 84-58 — 20 wins ahead of where they stood on this date last season (64-77).

Behind the plate: Mike Muchlinski leads the board at 98.5% on 130 calls; Vic Carapazza sits last (89.4%).

The stretch run — 144 team games down, the crowns are in play. AL RBI crown: Pete Alonso (BAL) 94, Yordan Alvarez (HOU) 94 — pace says 106–106; 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 .315, Chandler Simpson (TB) .308 · NL Batting title: Luis Arraez (PHI) .318, Nick Gonzales (PIT) .307.

Rookie watch: Sal Stewart (CIN) has 106 RBI — the most in baseball (from a board of 53).

Tonight's matchup: Yordan Alvarez came into this season 8-for-15 lifetime against Eduardo Rodriguez (AZ).

Tonight's matchup: Michael Harris II (ATL) came into this season 6-for-25 lifetime against Aaron Nola with 3 home runs.

The Orioles have lost 5 straight, and are 3-7 in their last 10.

The Athletics have won 4 straight, and are 5-5 in their last 10.

The D-backs moved into an NL wild-card spot. The Blue Jays moved into a tie for the last AL wild-card spot.

Sonny Gray (BOS): his 3rd straight win.

Jacob deGrom (TEX): a 3rd straight quality start.

Call-ups: Ty Johnson (Rays) and Vimael Machín (Rockies) — the first of them to homer tonight would be the 277th player since 1916 to do it in his MLB debut.

The Dodgers activated Bobby Miller off the injured list.

The Giants activated Joel Kuhnel off the injured list.

The Rays scored three in the 10th to take a game they had been losing.

Last night was the Phillies' 8th victory in 10 games.

Last night was the Dodgers' 8th victory in 10 games.

On this date in 1961, Lee Thomas hit 3 home runs in one game.

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 Angels have played 6 straight errorless games. The Pirates have 5.

The power outage is plural: Julio Rodríguez (20 HR) hasn't homered in 15 games; Trea Turner (17 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 87 to 103 and his home run pace from 32 to 40 in three weeks — 25 and 11 in 20 games where his own rate predicted 10.7 and 3.9. One of 71 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 .219 while his batted-ball quality says .257. Statcast's verdict: the hits are coming.

Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC) and Junior Caminero (TB) both sit within two of the 40-homer mark (closest: 39).

Jake McCarthy (COL), Otto Lopez (MIA) and CJ Abrams all sit within two of the 30-steal mark (closest: 29).

Historical intelligence

How the night stacked up

Pace through history

Kyle Schwarber versus the great home-run seasons

Kyle Schwarber has 41 home runs through 142 team games, 19 behind Barry Bonds's 2001 pace at the same checkpoint (60). Comparable chases finished with a median of 44 (95% CI 44-45); 4.5% reached 50 (2.1-9.6% at 95% confidence), from 132 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 188 and would finish 10 short.

SABR Lahman Baseball Database · through 2025

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 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 (86% similarity). The match is strongest in hit volume, speed, average; the largest difference is power. This is a comparison, not a forecast of how the season must finish.

SABR Lahman Baseball Database · through 2025

Closest to .400