Historic Chases · 2026-08-10

Overnight: nothing — Kyle Schwarber (PHI) held flat, and flat bends the projection down. Schwarber has struck out 173 times, projecting to 234. 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 (35) — one every 12.0 at-bats. The strikeouts are the price of the power.

No club in baseball has been hotter: the Red Sox have won 24 of their last 30, 4 clear of the next club among the 30 with a full 30 played. At its peak the run reached 27-3. They were 14 games under .500 on June 18 (29-43); they are 64-54 now. The Rays have won 7 straight, and are 8-2 in their last 10. Collapse watch in the NL West: the Dodgers' lead over the D-backs was 11.0 games 18 days ago — it's 7.5 now. The Dodgers have gone 6-10 while the D-backs went 10-7.

The so-what: Yordan Alvarez (HOU) is holding an AL Triple Crown — he leads the AL in average (.323), home runs (35) and RBI (86). He leads the AL in all five of batting average, on-base percentage, slugging, home runs and RBI — every one of them, among the 67 qualified AL hitters. Leading all five has been done four times in the AL since 1920, most recently by Frank Robinson in 1966. No one has won a Triple Crown since Miguel Cabrera in 2012, and only 17 have ever been won. Three categories, one player: that is what makes it one of the rarest things on the board.

Also last night: Yordan Alvarez extended his lead in batting average to .005 — .323 on the season; Stuff watch: Ben Brown's knuckle-curve has run 2.2 mph under his 13-start baseline for 3 straight starts (84.94 vs 87.09); Stuff watch: Dylan Cease's four-seamer has run 1.8 mph under his 15-start baseline for 3 straight starts (95.86 vs 97.62).

The season's pitching story, still running: Jacob Misiorowski (MIL) has struck out 13.80 per nine innings through 133 innings and 22 starts, the best rate among the 60 qualified starters on tonight's board. One of the 7,102 full-schedule qualified starter seasons the AL and NL have played since 1920 has finished a full schedule above it: Gerrit Cole's 13.82 in 2019. Above them on a short schedule: Shane Bieber's 14.20, over the 77.1 innings of 2020. It is a board position and not a record: the rate carries about 0.97 of sampling error over 133 innings, and no partial-season history exists to say how often a rate this high in August survives to October. Unchanged from a night ago.

Seasons on a historic footing: Jacob Misiorowski, an ERA of 1.76, tied for 9th among the 4,338 qualified seasons since 1969 with Tom Seaver's 1.76 in 1971 and 13.80 strikeouts per nine innings, 2nd among the 9,603 qualified seasons on file and behind only Gerrit Cole's 13.82 in 2019; Dylan Cease (TOR), 13.11 strikeouts per nine innings, 5th. The earned run average rank is given from 1969 on because the lowest earned run averages were thrown before the mound was lowered in 1969, and a rank across those eras is not a comparison the numbers support.

Lines of the night: Taylor Walls' tiebreaking single in the 8th put the Rays ahead for good against the Athletics ▶︎ watch; Jackson Merrill's go-ahead home run in the 7th put the Padres ahead for good against the Brewers ▶︎ watch; TEX went to extras, beating the Angels 4-1 ▶︎ watch; HOU went to extras, beating the Giants 6-3 ▶︎ watch; MacKenzie Gore struck out 9 over 5.1 IP ▶︎ watch.

What changed from last season: Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC) — walk rate up from 4.7% to 12.7% (29 in 620 plate appearances in 2025, 65 in 512 this season); Jackson Merrill (SD) — stolen bases up from 1 in 115 games in 2025 to 23 in 117 this season; Junior Caminero (TB) — walk rate up from 6.4% to 12.5% (41 in 643 plate appearances in 2025, 64 in 512 this season). 3 of 330 rate comparisons across 64 men on this season's leaderboards, corrected for having looked that many times.