A-Rod Stuck on 599

As you all know, Yankees 3B Alex Rodriguez belted his 599th career homer on July 22nd. Since the date on the calendar has now jumped to August 3rd, he has us all wondering when he'll smack number 600 out of the park. It won't be easy, as only six people on the face of the earth can honestly take credit for such a feat.

This whole waiting process is nothing new for Rodriguez, who waited 10 days and 29 at-bats before making the jump from 499 to 500 career long ones. But now, one century worth of homers later, we've all waited 12 days and 43 at-bats.

He's only 35 years old, and should be playing multiple more years in the MLB. So now that we've established that he won't be turning in his bat and gloves while stuck on 599, only one question remains--how much longer will it take?

It always seems that getting the third digit to a zero takes much longer than any other when talking about homers, but the reason for that can't be left to coincidence. In A-Rod's case, he's hitting .209 (9-43) since his last slammer. In those 43 at-bats, 9 resulted in strikeouts. Multiple strikeouts are an obvious indicator of pressing. So in order to not retire on 599, what can A-Rod do to reach this historic milestone?

The best thing for Rodriguez to do is ignore its existence; pretend he's at 362, or 428, or 576, or any other number that doesn't have MLB Network airing his every at-bat to make certain they televise his most recent milestone. Obviously it's impossible to not think about it, but A-Rod needs to get back to that natural swing that he's had for all his other homers. As every pitch makes its way to the plate, instead of thinking 'This might be the one!' he needs to be thinking about nothing. Yeah, that's right, nothing at all. These home run hitters must rely on instinct. When their eyes see those hanging breaking balls splitting the middle of the plate, their arms take over from there.

If A-Rod proceeds each pitch like he always has, then the deafening fans and that historic jog around the bases will come sooner than he knows...