2010 # 21_A-Rod's third home run (2010-08-14)
2010 # 22_A-Rod's solo blast (2010-09-06)
2010 # 23_A-Rod's solo blast (2010-09-14)
2010 # 24_A-Rod's 607th homer (2010-09-17)
2010 # 25_A-Rod's go-ahead blast (2010-09-17)
2010 # 26_A-Rod's 609th homer (2010-09-24)
2010 # 27_A-Rod's 610th career homer (2010-09-24)
2010 # 28_A-Rod's solo home run (2010-09-25)
2010 # 29_A-Rod's clutch two-run shot (2010-09-26)
2010 # 30_A-Rod hits No. 30 (2010-09-29)
2010 # 11_A-Rod's two-run homer (2010-06-27)
2010 # 12_A-Rod's two-run blast (2010-07-01)
2010 # 13_A-Rod's grand slam (2010-07-06)
2010 # 14_A-Rod's second homer (2010-07-06)
2010 # 15_A-Rod's 598th homer (2010-07-18)
2010 # 16_A-Rod's 599th career homer (2010-07-22)
2010 # 17_Must C: Clutch (2010-08-04)
2010 # 18_A-Rod's game-tying shot (2010-08-10)
2010 # 19_A-Rod's solo shot (2010-08-14)
2010 # 20_A-Rod's two-run shot (2010-08-14)
2010 # 01_A-Rod's solo blast (2010-04-17)
2010 # 02_A-Rod's three-run homer (2010-04-20)
2010 # 03_A-Rod's 586th homer (2010-05-09)
2010 # 04_A-Rod's grand slam (2010-05-14)
2010 # 05_A-Rod's game-tying homer (2010-05-17)
2010 # 06_A-Rod's solo jack (2010-05-19)
2010 # 07_A-Rod's grand slam (2010-05-31)
2010 # 08_A-Rod's two-run shot (2010-06-03)
2010 # 09_A-Rod's two-run shot (2010-06-22)
2010 # 10_A-Rod's solo blast (2010-06-25)
A-Rod hits No. 30
*13년 연속 30홈런-100타점 : 신기록 (종전 팍스 12년 연속)
*13년 연속 30홈런 : 타이기록 (배리 본즈)
*13년 연속 100타점 : 신기록 (종전 팍스-게릭 12년 연속)
*30홈런 14회 : 2위 기록 (1위 행크 애런 15회)
*100타점 14회 : 신기록 (종전 팍스-게릭-루스 13회)
Granderson's solo homer
Teixeira's solo shot
A-Rod's 609th homer
Swisher's two-run homer
A-Rod's 610th career homer
Teixeira's second homer
A-Rod alone in sixth
Cano's diving stop
Cano's over-the-shoulder catch
Swisher's sliding catch
Jeter's nice play
Gardner's running catch
Kearns' solo blast
Granderson's RBI single
Jeter's stellar defense
Teixeira's sacrifice fly
CC's solid outing
It took him awhile, but on Wednesday afternoon, Alex Rodriguez became just the seventh man in baseball history to hit 600 home runs. A-Rod is the youngest to reach the mark by a year and a half, and the first non-outfielder to accomplish the feat. The milestone home run came with a 2-0 count and one man on base against Blue Jays righty Shaun Marcum in the bottom of the first inning of a scoreless game. Here is a breakdown of all 600 of his home runs as well as a look at how Rodriguez stacks up against the other members of the 600 club.
Most victimized teams: Angels (67), Orioles (51), Blue Jays (51), Twins (45), Red Sox (45)
Most victimized pitchers: Bartolo Colon (8), Ramon Ortiz (8), David Wells (8), Tim Wakefield (7), Jarrod Washburn (7)
Members of 300-Win Club: Roger Clemens (2), Tom Glavine (1)
Cy Young award winners: Bartolo Colon (8), Barry Zito (5), Chris Carpenter (3), Clemens (2), Doug Drabek (2), Cliff Lee (2), Johan Santana (2), Glavine (1), Dwight Gooden (1), Zack Greinke (1), Roy Halladay (1), Orel Hershiser (1), Pedro Martinez (1), Jack McDowell (1), Jake Peavy (1)
Cy Young award winners in their Cy Young seasons: Colon, 2005 (4); Martinez, 1999 (1)
Brothers: Jered (4) and Jeff Weaver (1); Orlando (4) and Livan Hernandez (3)
Righties: 454 (16.6 PA/HR)
Lefties: 146 (17.0 PA/HR)
First: off Tom Gordon, Royals, June 12, 1995, two-out solo homer in the fourth inning at the Kingdome with Mariners trailing 8-3
By runs: Solo (310), two-run (206), three-run (63), grand slams (21)*
By game situation: go-ahead (204), game-tying (48), walk-off (9)
Multi-homer games: two homers (52), three homers (3)
*Rodriguez is tied with Manny Ramirez for second all-time in grand slams. Lou Gehrig leads with 23.
Season highs: 57 (2002), 54 (2007), 52 (2001), 48 (2005), 47 (2003)
Postseason: ALCS (7), ALDS (5), World Series (1)
All-Star Game: 1 (Coors Field, 1998)
Month (regular season): August (122), July (106), May (104), September/October (95), March/April (87), June (86)
Inning: First (110), Sixth (89), Third (78), Seventh (63), Fourth (59), Eighth (59), Fifth (58), Second (39), Ninth (36), Eleventh (3), Tenth (2), Twelfth (2), Fifteenth (1), Sixteenth (1)
By position: Shortstop (344)*, Third Base (245), Designated Hitter (11)
By position in the batting order: Third (223), Fourth (217), Second (118), Fifth (32), Ninth (6), First (2), Seventh (1), Sixth (1)
Count: 0-0 (104), 0-1 (70), 1-0 (62), 1-1 (61), 3-2 (55), 2-2 (51), 2-1 (49), 1-2 (43), 2-0 (41), 3-1 (38), 0-2 (21), 3-0 (2), unknown (3)
Runners on base: Bases empty (310); First base occupied (220); Men on, but first base empty (70)
Run differential: Tied (169), +/-1 (134), +/-2 (76), +/-3 (79), +/-4 or more (142)
*Rodriguez moved to third base one home run shy of Cal Ripken Jr.'s record for home runs as a shortstop.
Ballparks: Yankee Stadium (124), Ballpark in Arlington (96), Kingdome (60), Safeco Field (39), Angel Stadium (37)
Cities: New York (155), Seattle (99), Arlington (96), Anaheim (37), Toronto (32)
Inactive Parks: Yankee Stadium (124), Kingdome (60), Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (21), Tiger Stadium (6), Milwaukee County Stadium (3), Shea Stadium (2), Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium (1), 3Com Park at Candlestick Point (1), Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium (1),
Parks in which he has played but not homered (by PA, active parks in italics): Wrigley Field (15), Busch Stadium II (14), Citizens Bank Park (14)*, Target Field (12), Estadio Hiram Bithorn (11), Tokyo Dome (9), Land Shark Stadium (5)
*Rodriguez did homer in Citizens Bank Park in Game 3 of the 2009 World Series
Statistics through each players' first 600 home runs only (NOTE: All-Star Game and postseason home runs do not count toward a player's career totals):
Career home-run leaders: Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714), Willie Mays (660), Ken Griffey Jr. (630), Sammy Sosa (609), Alex Rodriguez (600)
Age at 600th: Rodriguez (35 years, 8 days), Ruth (36 years, 196 days), Aaron (37 years, 81 days), Bonds (38 years, 16 days), Mays (38 years, 139 days), Griffey Jr. (38 years, 202 days), Sosa (38 years, 221 days)
PA between 599 and 600: Rodriguez (51), Griffey Jr. (27), Mays (23), Sosa (13), Bonds (13), Aaron (1), Ruth (1)
PA/HR: Sosa (16.2), Rodriguez (16.7), Bonds (17.0), Griffey Jr. (17.4), Mays (18.0), Aaron (18.6)
AB/HR: Bonds (13.7), Sosa (14.40) Rodriguez (14.43), Griffey Jr. (15.1), Mays (15.9), Aaron (16.7)
HR as a percentage of hits: Sosa (25.4 percent), Bonds (24.9), Griffey Jr. (22.9), Rodriguez (22.8), Mays (20.5), Aaron (19.2)
Grand Slams in first 600 homers: Rodriguez (21), Griffey Jr. (15), Ruth (14), Aaron (13), Bonds (11), Sosa (9), Mays (7)
Walk-offs: Ruth (11), Sosa (10), Rodriguez (9), Bonds (6), Mays (5), Aaron (4), Griffey Jr. (4)
Pinch-hit homers: Mays (5)*, Griffey Jr. (5), Bonds (3), Aaron (2), Ruth (1), Sosa (1), Rodriguez (0)
Inside-the-park: Ruth (10), Mays (6), Bonds (3), Griffey Jr. (3), Sosa (2), Aaron (1), Rodriguez (0)
All-Star Game: Mays (3), Aaron (2), Bonds (2), Ruth (1)**, Griffey Jr. (1), Rodriguez (1), Sosa (0)
Postseason: Ruth (15), Rodriguez (13), Bonds (9), Aaron (6), Griffey Jr. (6), Sosa (2), Mays (1)
World Series: Ruth (15), Bonds (4), Aaron (3), Rodriguez (1), Mays (0), Griffey Jr. (0), Sosa (0)
*Mays' 600th home run was a pinch-hit homer. Mays hit for rookie George Foster with the game tied 2-2 in the seventh and hit a two-run homer that provided the winning margin for the Giants. **Ruth hit the first ever All-Star Game home run, in 1933.
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/cliff_corcoran/08/04/600.club/index.html#ixzz0w0nU1tzz
Alex Rodriguez's interminable run to his 600th career home run wasn't greeted with the kind of breathless anticipation that we associate with round-number baseball milestones. While many are quick to point to Rodriguez's confessed steroid use and the general impression that all hitting statistics from the late 20th and early-21st centuries are tainted, something more banal is in play. Whereas 600 home runs was a historic barrier as recently as 2001, with just three players having ever reached that number, three more hit their 600th homers over the next seven seasons. Rodriguez's accomplishment means that more players have hit their 600th homer in the last decade than did in the first 125 years of baseball history. A 600th home run simply isn't as special as it was just 10 years ago.
Moreover, 600 homers, which A-Rod finally reached on Wednesday against the Blue Jays after a drought of almost two weeks, isn't seen as an achievement for Rodriguez so much as a mile marker. An All-Star at 20, a quarter-billionaire at 25, a member of the 400-homer and 500-homer clubs at a younger age than anyone else, and still a very good player at 35, Rodriguez is expected to shatter the all-time home-run record, currently held by Barry Bonds with 762. There's such an inevitability to this that $12 million of Rodriguez's compensation under his 10-year contract with the Yankees is tied to his hitting the record-tying and record-setting longballs.
It is inevitable. Rodriguez is still relatively young for an all-time great, having turned 35 last Tuesday, and his skills remain largely intact even after hip surgery in 2009. He may never run the bases or rack up steals -- he currently has 299 with an 81 percent success rate -- the way he did before the injury, and his lateral range at third base has been significantly diminished. At the plate, though, he's still a force, even in one of the worst seasons of his career. (Note: All advanced stats are entering Wednesday's game against the Blue Jays.) The chart at right shows Rodriguez's worst full seasons by True Average (TAv is a Baseball Prospectus statistic that measures overall offensive performance, including base-stealing, and adjusts for park effects and league offensive levels).
Rodriguez's brutal slump as he chased homer No. 600 has left him with the worst stats of his career. As you can see from his True Average, it isn't that much worse than his previous lows, and we are measuring him at a low point in his season.
Looking deeper, we find that Rodriguez has been a somewhat different hitter this season, swinging at more pitches, making more contact, but less solid contact. Rodriguez has his highest rates of chasing pitches out of the zone and hitting them since 2002, which is the extent to which we have data. This weaker contact has driven down his line-drive rate (15.5 percent, tied for his lowest since 2002) and with that his batting average on balls in play (.278, a career low). (All data courtesy Fangraphs.) The increased amount of contact has lowered his walk and strikeout rates, which is one reason why his RBI count (currently 85) is so high even in an off-year. The biggest difference, however, is in his HR/FB rate. For his career, Rodriguez hits a homer on 23 percent of his fly balls. In 2010 that number is off by nearly half, to 12.6 percent. This number is a skill for batters (it tends to be a constant for pitchers, around 10 percent), and given that the biggest difference between Rodriguez in 2010 and in previous years is in his home-run rate, it seems to hold the key to his apparent "off-year."
Putting it all together, it seems that Rodriguez has made a conscious decision to move away from a take-and-rake style, to be more aggressive at the plate. The tradeoff has cost him solid contact, as shown by the loss of line drives, and possibly some power, as shown by what's happening to his fly balls. What's strange is that this is the opposite pattern shown by hitters as they age; usually, aging hitters will swing less, walk more and trade contact for power. As is always the case, Alex Rodriguez confounds expectations.
Of course, we're dancing around the real issue here, which has nothing to do with 600 or even 700 home runs. Will Rodriguez break Bonds' record? He needs another 163 homers. Over the past three seasons, he has hit a home run every 19.3 plate appearances, with a big falloff this season (one every 27 plate appearances). If that three-year number were to rise slightly every season, to 19.5, then 20.5, etc., reflecting a slow decline, Rodriguez would need about another 3,700 plate appearances, seven seasons at his current pace, to break the record at the age of 42 early in 2018. His contract runs through 2017, so barring catastrophe or a massive performance decline, he'll have a job through then. Even after hip surgery last year, even having an off-year this season, even working on the fly to change his approach at the plate, Rodriguez has such a head start on the field thanks to being an all-time great at the age of 20 that he can face some loss of skills at a relatively early age and still be a favorite to break the all-time home-run record using a fairly conservative projection of his performance from ages 35-41.
Rodriguez's early start leaves him plenty of room to decline, as well as to suffer the minor injuries that often chip away at an older player's at-bats, and still chase down Bonds with room to spare. The chart at right offers one very conservative estimate of the remainder of his career, beginning with the rest of 2010:
If this path were to hold, Rodriguez would hit his 763rd home run early in the the 2018 season. I'll take April 14th, 2018, off the Orioles' Jamie Moyer.
As you look at the all-time home-run list, you see possible paths for Rodriguez. Bonds, controversially, hit 317 homers after 34. Babe Ruth, not remembered for his longevity, roped 198 homers after 34. At the other end of the spectrum, Willie Mays had his last big year at 34 and hit just 155 more homers. Ken Griffey Jr., once considered a challenger to Aaron's mark, hit just 129 homers after 34. Sammy Sosa finished eighth in the NL MVP voting at 34 and was out of the league two years later (he came back after a missed season before retiring for good).
The model for Rodriguez, however, isn't any of those players. If you look at Baseball-Reference.com, you find that through age 33 -- through last season -- the player Rodriguez most resembles statistically is Hank Aaron. Aaron hit 245 of his homers after 34, admittedly becoming an extreme version of the all-or-nothing hitter discussed earlier. (Aaron had just 54 doubles and three triples in a four-year span starting in 1972, while hitting 106 homers in those seasons.) Rodriguez is a right-handed batter with power to all fields, good plate discipline without being a high-walks guy, and a track record of consistency. It is Aaron whose path he will most likely take over the next decade, continuing to hit for power as some of his other skills deteriorate, doing so well enough to be an asset to a good team even as more of his value becomes tied to his home-run hitting. Rodriguez, like Aaron, will finish his career strong, breaking Bonds' record and eventually pushing the career home-run mark into the 800s.
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Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/joe_sheehan/08/03/arod.600/index.html#ixzz0w0kYZ8Qh
NEW YORK -- Dozens of flashbulbs greeted Alex Rodriguez's first-inning swing Wednesday afternoon, and when he connected with the pitch from Toronto's Shaun Marcum, the 47,659 fans in attendance at Yankee Stadium stood and cheered as the ball arced over the center-field wall to become Rodriguez's 600th career home run. As he rounded the bases behind Derek Jeter, who had been on first base, the scoreboard congratulated Rodriguez and then there was a procession of hugs with every teammate in front of the empty dugout.
Rodriguez had just become only the seventh player in baseball history to reach that milestone. Had it not been for a protective netting hanging just beyond the center field fence, the ball would have landed in Monument Park, the ballpark museum where plaques celebrate Yankees legends. At such a moment, it was natural to wonder if Rodriguez himself will ever go where his historic homer nearly did.
"We're happy for him," said Jeter, whose spot in Monument Park has long been secured. "Anytime you're talking about an accomplishment like this, not that many people have done it."
Rodriguez certainly took his time joining the exclusive 600 Club, needing almost two weeks and 47 at-bats after parking No. 599 on July 22 against the Royals. After failing again on Tuesday night, Rodriguez said he spoke with Jeter at some length, in which his teammate shared his similar experience in chasing and passing a significant number -- in Jeter's case, Lou Gehrig's franchise hits record. "No question I was pressing to get it out of the way," said Rodriguez on Wednesday. "It's definitely a special number. I'm certainly proud of it. I'll cherish it for a long, long time."
It's hard to know how many others will. The public has quickly grown weary of tainted power numbers. Bonds' push past Aaron -- which came just four days after A-Rod hit his 500th in the summer of 2007 -- was greeted with rolled eyes and groans outside of San Francisco because it seemed to be a personal assault on a clean legend. When Rodriguez hit no. 500 exactly three years to the day before he reached 600, he was being looked at as the non-steroid tainted savior of the home run record, the one who would pry it away from BALCO Barry. Now, however, Rodriguez is just another disgraced power hitter of the Steroid Era, having been outed and subsequently confessed to using steroids between 2001 and 2003.
How much did steroids help Rodriguez? Even if all they did was increase his bat speed to catch up to balls he wouldn't otherwise have hit, it's fair to say he wouldn't be at 600 right now without them. It may also have added a few extra feet to his blasts, but A-Rod has never been a just-enough home-run hitter. Over the past five years, a period outside his confessed steroid use, he averaged 409 feet per home run. Even noted longball thief Torii Hunter admitted he had never come close to taking one away from Rodriguez.
"Whenever he hit a home run, I was watching," Hunter, the Angels' center fielder, said. "I was amazed with my mouth wide open like 'wow.' When he hit a home run, it wasn't a wall scraper. Balls he hit out of the park, don't worry about running after them."
Indeed, Rodriguez has always been more of a hitter with power than a true slugger. His swing is smooth and compact, yet explosive, making his power a little deceptive. Home runs are simply part of his overall game -- he's a .303 career hitter who has won a batting title -- and perhaps that's another reason for the lackluster reception for the milestone, not to mention that his power has noticeably diminished to just one home run every 24 at bats, his worst rate since 1997.
That scandal is the biggest reason for the diminished buzz as he approached 600. Another, more positive theory, is that this is a mere stepping stone along the way to bigger things.
"He's going to hit way more than 600," Yankees reliever Chad Gaudin said. "What matters is how many he has when he retires."
One more hypothesis is that Rodriguez's career has been split among three teams, and thus no one club's fans can claim him as their own. Even though he has played more games and hit more home runs with the Yankees than he did with either the Mariners or the Rangers, he'll never be lionized as a Yankee the same way that lifers like Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera are.
Perhaps most of all, the milestone din has been missing because with A-Rod, the show has never been about just what he does on the field. At various times in his career, there have been headlines about his contracts (he has signed the two biggest deals in baseball history), his social life (dating Hollywood actresses), his sportsmanship (slapping the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove during the 2004 playoffs, announcing he was opting out of his contract during the 2007 World Series or yelling "Ha!" to distract Blue Jays' third baseman Howie Clark from fielding a pop-up), his associations (his overly candid admission about his fading friendship with Jeter and his connection to a Canadian doctor known for promoting human growth hormone) and his portrayal in the media (posing for a lurid photo shoot in which he wore a dingy tanktop, lounged on an old mattress and kissed his own reflection in a mirror).
This season, too, Rodriguez has been a magnet for mishap and misfortune. He jogged across a mound occupied by A's starter Dallas Braden, violating one of baseball's lesser known codes of conduct, even among the game's unwritten rules. He was the lone AL position player not to participate in the All-Star Game, reportedly because of a sore thumb that Yankees and AL All-Star manager Joe Girardi denied his player had.
"I know how much Al just wants to get down to baseball and winning games and not being the talk," Girardi said Wednesday. "I'm happy for him.
Rodriguez spoke repeatedly in recent days about how he has changed, trying to be less the center of attention while focusing less on his own statistics and more on his team's accomplishments. On Wednesday, he admitted that in the past he has failed to back up his words with actions, saying "I didn't always walk the walk" and he mentioned how he'd like to be seen as just a baseball player.
That may not be possible for someone who spends so much time in the spotlight, even when he doesn't want to. But unlike other tainted sluggers such as Bonds, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa, A-Rod has the luxury time to prove to fans and Hall of Fame voters with his all around play on the field and contrition off it that he is a different man.
Rodriguez's redemption story and journey to joining the Yankees greats in Monument Park cannot be simply about home runs. For now, this milestone is just a hollow number. Statistics alone are no longer convincing. His impact will have to come in other ways, such as his role in helping New York win last year's World Series. That's how he can change opinions about himself.
