Brewers' Braun will join exclusive company with next home run
Does anyone remember when 300 career home runs was a big deal?
Ryan Braun sits one away from that career milestone, which doesn't mean as much as is used to. However, it still will put Braun in some elite company.
With his next home run -- yes, No. 300 -- Braun will become just the sixth player in major-league history to have 300+ homers and 180+ stolen bases through his first 11 MLB seasons. Besides his 299 homers, Braun has stolen 190 bases (and we're really rooting for at least two more this season).
The others:
-- Willie Mays (1951-62): 368 HR, 240 SB
-- Reggie Jackson (1967-77): 313 HR, 188 SB
-- Barry Bonds (1986-96): 334 HR, 380 SB
-- Sammy Sosa (1989-99): 336 HR, 224 SB
-- Alex Rodriguez (1994-2004): 381 HR, 205 SB
Braun seemingly has a good chance to join that exclusive club this weekend.
He's hit three home runs against the Chicago Cubs this season, including two in four games at Wrigley Field. In his career, Braun has 32 homers vs. Chicago with 14 coming at Wrigley (both are the second most, behind Cincinnati and Great American Ball Park).
Braun has two career homers off John Lackey, the Cubs' Friday starter -- one this year and one last, and both at Wrigley. Saturday, the Brewers face Mike Montgomery -- yup, Braun took him deep this year at Wrigley, too. He hasn't hit one off Sunday's starter Kyle Hendricks, but maybe he'll already be at 300 by then -- and, of course, just because it hasn't happened doesn’t mean it can’t.
Other notes:
-- The last seven games Jimmy Nelson has started have all been decided by one run. That's the longest streak for any pitcher since Arizona's Wade Miley had seven in a row from May 27-July 1, 2014. The last pitcher to have eight consecutive starts decided by one run was San Diego's Tim Worrell (Aug. 4-Sept. 15, 1993).
Statistics courtesy STATS and baseball-reference
