Ralph Kiner Home Run Watch

Can he surpass Ruth?

Ralph Kiner Home Run Watch

Don’t look now, but Ralph Kiner is flirting with 60.

Here are his stats so far:

We’ve played 43 games so far. He’s already got 21 home runs, or about .49 per game.

Here are his two most recent home runs:

We’re playing the full 154 game schedule. I took a look at the upcoming transaction log. It looks like he’s going to wind up missing 3 games in the future (remember that we’re using the as-scheduled schedule, not the as-played schedule):

It looks like he’ll miss the games on June 17 and 18. I’m not sure if he’ll be healthy on June 19 or not; let’s assume not for the sake of argument.

That means that Kiner will play a total of 151 games for the Pirates.

If he continues to hit home runs at the same rate, he’ll wind up with 73.

Kiner is by far the most dominating offensive force in the National League. His .841 slugging percentage is a Barry Bonds number, and his .505 on base percentage means that I’m basically obligated to bat him leadoff. That gives him more plate appeareances, of course, which means that he has even more chances to feast off National League pitching.

Ralph’s best work in the sim has come against lefties, though he is honestly equally terrifying to both lefties and righties. He’s an equal opportunity terror, a batter that no pitcher wants to see on deck.

I think there is a very real chance that he’ll hit at least 60 home runs.

By the way, if you’re curious, Kiner had “only” 13 home runs at the 43 game mark in real life. He was on pace for 46, and wound up with 54. Yes — that does indeed mean that his home run production might increase as we hit the summer months.

This might turn out to be a truly memorable replay.