Historic Chases · 2026-08-15

Overnight: Kyle Schwarber (PHI) added 2 strikeouts. Schwarber has struck out 179 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 (37) — one every 11.8 at-bats. The strikeouts are the price of the power.

Collapse watch in the NL West: the Dodgers' lead over the D-backs was 11.5 games 18 days ago — it's 8.0 now. The Dodgers have gone 7-10 while the D-backs went 10-6.

The so-what: Yordan Alvarez (HOU) is holding an AL Triple Crown — he leads the AL in average (.321), home runs (36) and RBI (88). He leads the AL in all five of batting average, on-base percentage, slugging, home runs and RBI — every one of them, among the 68 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. Hold all three to the end and it is one of the rarest seasons in the sport.

Jacob Misiorowski (MIL) struck out six over six innings, allowing one earned. 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 and Jacob deGrom's 13.76, over the 68.0 innings of 2020. It is a board position and not a record: the rate carries about 0.94 of sampling error over 139 innings, and no partial-season history exists to say how often a rate this high in August survives to October. He has 210 strikeouts.

Lines of the night: Charles McAdoo's tiebreaking double in the 7th put the Blue Jays ahead for good in a 4-1 win over the Yankees — and he hit his first career double ▶︎ watch; Alec Bohm had a perfect day: 5-for-5 — perfect 5-for-5 games happen roughly 15 times a season ▶︎ watch; Heriberto Hernández's tiebreaking single in the 8th put the Marlins ahead for good in a 8-4 win over the Reds ▶︎ watch; Reid Detmers (LAA) struck out 11 over 8.0 IP — a season high, past his previous 6 ▶︎ watch; Joey Cantillo allowed one hit over 6.0 innings (7 K) ▶︎ watch.

Also last night: Randy Dobnak went 5.2 scoreless ▶︎ watch; Sonny Gray (BOS) reached 15 wins for the season; Nolan Arenado hit 2 home runs, driving in 4 — in his first season with the Diamondbacks ▶︎ watch.

Seasons on a historic footing: Jacob Misiorowski, an ERA of 1.75, tied for 8th among the 4,338 qualified seasons since 1969 with Justin Verlander's 1.75 in 2022 and 13.60 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), 13.09 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.

What changed from last season: Jackson Merrill (SD) — stolen bases up from 1 in 115 games in 2025 to 24 in 121 this season; Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC) — walk rate up from 4.7% to 12.1% (29 in 620 plate appearances in 2025, 65 in 535 this season); Nolan Arenado (AZ) — strikeout rate up from 12.2% to 23.0% (49 in 401 at-bats in 2025, 93 in 404 this season). 3 of 825 rate comparisons across 161 qualified hitters and pitchers, corrected for having looked that many times.