Phillies won two straight yay! Of course they lost 16 of 22 prior, so I gotta get it while I can.

I mentioned home runs earlier. ESPN ran a piece today with some numbers. Not sure if the copy/paste will work OK...

• Christian Yelich is on pace for 60 home runs, but that actually undersells his remarkable performance. Because he missed a few games, he is on pace for just 147 games played. If he homers at the same rate for the rest of the season and plays every game, he will become just the sixth player to hit 60 home runs -- and the first since Roger Maris in 1961 not named Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa. Not possible? Well, consider that over his past 160 games, Yelich has hit .344/.429/.707 with 56 home runs. He has been slugging at this level for a year now.

• The Minnesota Twins have belted 147 home runs, a season-long pace of 309 home runs. That would destroy the single-season mark of 267, set last season by the New York Yankees.

• Entering Monday, 22 players had at least 19 home runs, a 40-homer pace. If 22 players do get to 40, that would break the single-season record of 17 players from 1996. Only three players hit 40 last season. The home run leaderboard is full of surprising names such as Hunter Renfroe (23), Jorge Soler (21), Ketel Marte (20), Josh Bell (20), Max Kepler (19), Derek Dietrich (18) and Daniel Vogelbach (18).

• Rookie Pete Alonso is second to Yelich with his 27 home runs, so he has a chance to challenge Aaron Judge's rookie record of 52 and seems like a lock to break Cody Bellinger's National League record of 39.

Of course, this means somebody is serving up all those home runs. Consider the horror side of the story:

• The Baltimore Orioles are on pace to give up 324 home runs. That's an average of 36 home runs for each of the nine spots in the lineup. Nolan Arenado led the NL last year with 38 home runs.

• Drew Smyly of the Texas Rangers, trying to come back from Tommy John surgery, picked the wrong year for a comeback. He served up 19 home runs in 51⅓ innings before his release last week. Jerad Eickhoff of the Philadelphia Phillies isn't far behind, serving up 18 home runs in 58⅓ innings, before landing on the injured list with biceps homeritis.

• Smyly's rate of 3.33 home runs per nine innings is the worst ever for a minimum of 50 innings. Eickhoff is seventh worst. David Hess is ninth worst. But consider some of the pitchers with fewer innings: Alex Cobb has allowed nine home runs in 12⅓ innings; Edwin Jackson, 12 in 25⅓; and Dan Straily, 22 in 47⅔. Drew Steckenrider allowed nine hits in 14⅓ innings -- six of them home runs. Eleven pitchers with at least 10 innings have a higher home run rate than Smyly.

So, home runs -- a record-setting number of them, on pace for 1,000 more home runs than last season and 500 more than previous record set in 2017 -- have been the big story of the first half. Because this is baseball, critics have met this onslaught of power with a considerable degree of "get off my lawn" commentary. Back in 2014, everyone was complaining that nobody could hit anymore. Now everyone is complaining that there are too many home runs.