Ryan Howard hit the 200th home run of his career tonight, making the score 4-0 Phillies over the Marlins. That makes Ryan the fastest to 200 HR in terms of games:
The Philadelphia Phillies’ slugger achieved the feat in his 658th game, hitting his 23rd homer of the season in the sixth inning Thursday against Florida.
Ralph Kiner was previously the fastest player to reach 200 home runs. He did it in 706 games.
Of course, games doesn’t mean much in the pursuit of career records. Howard’s seasonal age is 29, and through that age the player ranked 10th, Juan Gonzalez, hit 340. Howard’s late start will likely keep him off the all-time leader board.
David, You refer to “seasonal age” a lot and while I have a general idea what it means, can you point me to a post or something that explains it in more detail?
From almost 4 years ago:
http://www.baseballmusings.com/archives/010439.php
“Seasonal age is the age a player is for most of the baseball season. The cut off is July 1. Whatever age you are before July 1 is your age for the year. By this measure, Alex is only 29. By seasonal age, here are the most home runs through age 29:”
Also shows how far off Howard is.