Number 99.

Joey Gallo hits a home run every 11.8 official at-bats.

He has ninety-nine career home runs. In 1,173 at-at bats. One more to 100.

The major league record for quickest to 100 career home runs belongs to ex-Phillie Ryan Howard. He got to 100 in 1,141 at-bats, just thirty-two at-bats quicker than Gallo, when he was twenty-seven years old. Gallo is twenty-five.

Howard had a very accomplished major league career. Thirteen seasons. Rookie of the Year. MVP one season, three others where he finished in the top five in MPV voting, two more in the top ten. Three All-Star game appearances. He led the league in homers twice, RBIs three times, total bases once, strikeouts just twice.

Ryan Howard retired after the 2016 season with 382 career home runs.

While Gallo cannot set the major league record for quickest to 100, he can still set the American League record. That was achieved in 1,322 at-bats. By the most unlikely person ever. Ken Phelps.

Ken who?

That’s what people said when he was actually playing.

Phelps was an oddity in his day, the early 1980s. He was the original three-outcome hitter. A home run, a walk, or a strikeout. Back then, that kind of thing made you a part-time player. Today, of course, he would be a god.

Because he wasn’t an every day player, Phelps didn’t hit his first major league home run until his fourth season. But he’d had only 34 at-bats by then. In the fifth game of the 1983 season, he hit his first home run, on career at-bat thirty-nine. He never hit more than 27 in a season, and he ended his career with just 123 home runs. In eleven seasons. And only 1,854 at-bats.

Still, he did get to 100 home runs in fewer at-bats than anyone else in American League history: 1,322 to be exact.

Joey Gallo can break that. All he has to do is hit one more home run in his next 148 at-bats. At the rate he has hit them so far, he should have twelve more by then.

Chances are good Joey Gallo will be the fastest player in American League history very soon.

And that will be pretty remarkable.

*****
TODAY’S GAME:

Trent Thornton (0-3, 5.08) vs. Mike Minor (3-2, 2.88)
Game time: 7:05