Jackson Chourio Hits 20 Homers Again Before Turning 23

Jackson Chourio got to 20 homers Saturday night, the third straight season he has done it, and he is still 22 years old. That is the whole headline and it is plenty. Twenty homers in three consecutive seasons before a 23rd birthday puts him on a list that is very short and very famous, and I do not have the full roll call in front of me yet, but you already know the neighborhood: it is the one where the plaques live.

What makes this land is how normal it has started to feel. Chourio arrived in Milwaukee with the kind of hype that usually takes a couple of years to survive, signed to a long-term deal before he had taken a single major league at-bat, and then he just went out and hit. No adjustment year. No sophomore reckoning. He hit as a rookie, he hit again, and he is hitting now, which is the rarest thing a young power bat can do: repeat himself.

checked the almanac: mel ott hit 42 homers for the giants in 1929 at age 20, and eddie mathews hit 47 for the braves in 1953 at 21. that is the air up there. it thins out fast.

The part I keep chewing on is that Milwaukee developed this. The Brewers have spent years being the organization that finds the arm nobody wanted and turns him into a 200-strikeout starter. Bats, especially bats like this one, have been the harder trick. Chourio is a homegrown, extended, middle-of-the-order outfielder in a market that is not supposed to keep one of those, and he is signed for the long haul. In Milwaukee that is not a nice story. That is the plan working.

What comes next is simple and it is soon: the Rangers are in town Sunday afternoon, first pitch 2:11 ET, and Chourio will be in the lineup doing the thing he does. September is where young hitters either fade or announce themselves, and the pitching he sees from here gets sharper by the week. That is the test I want to watch. Not whether he gets to 25 or 30, but whether the swing holds its shape when the scouting reports get mean and the games start counting double.

He has three seasons of evidence saying it will. He is 22. Ridiculous.