Christian Yelich's National League MVP defense has gotten off to a better start than anyone expected (except, perhaps, Yelich himself). It's even inspired us to wonder if he could be authoring the best MVP follow-up season ever.

But as Yelich's 23 homers pace the Majors with about 40 percent of the season complete, maybe it's time to ask another question that’s just as ambitious: Could Yelich reach 60?

Sixty home runs might not hold the same aura as they did before Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds rewrote the record books, but there’s still just eight 60-homer seasons on the books -- and none since Bonds and Sosa crossed the threshold in 2001.

60-plus home run seasons
Barry Bonds (73 -- 2001)
Sammy Sosa (66 -- 1998, 63 -- ’99, 64 -- ’01)
Mark McGwire (70 -- 1998, 65 -- ’99)
Roger Maris (61 -- 1961)
Babe Ruth (60 -- 1927)

Major Leaguers set the single-season home run record in 2017 (and came close in ’16 and ’18), but it was more the “middle class” that fueled the surge. Only 10 sluggers have amassed 50 homers over the past 17 seasons, with just three surpassing 55.

So, what would it take for Yelich -- who is currently "on pace" for 58 dingers -- to snap the drought? Using those previous eight 60-dinger seasons as a guide, let’s lay out his path.

Getting to 60

There’s only 162 games to work with, and Yelich has already missed seven. But if the banner seasons of Ruth, Maris, McGwire, Sosa and Bonds are any indication, he still has a shot. Here are the minimum number of home runs each of those legends had after each calendar month of the season:

Min. HRs by calendar date in 60 HR seasons
June 1: 12 (Maris, '61)
July 1: 23 (McGwire, '99)
Aug. 1: 34 (Ruth, '27)
Sept. 1: 43 (Ruth, '27)

Yelich (through June 7): 23

Twelve homers by the end of May seems low for such a lofty goal, but 60-homer lore is filled with “late bloomers” (more on that in a second). The climb gets steeper from there, of course. Courtesy of the Elias Sports Bureau, here’s a look at how many hitters have made it to each minimum from 2002-18.

12 HRs by June 1: 325
23 HRs by July 1: 58
34 HRs by Aug. 1: 7
43 HRs by Sept. 1: 11

Four players (Alex Rodriguez in 2002 and ’07, Ryan Howard and David Ortiz in ’06, Chris Davis in ’13) reached each of those benchmarks within one season, according to Elias. Howard came the closest to 60 in that group with 58 round-trippers, but he failed to go deep over his final nine games of '06. Giancarlo Stanton had 33 homers by August 2017 before he finished the season just one dinger shy of 60.

Yelich isn't the only one who could reach that next benchmark by July 1; Pete Alonso and Cody Bellinger have 20 dingers apiece, with Gary Sanchez and Franmil Reyes right behind them with 19. One hot week by any of those sluggers could put them neck-and-neck with Yelich. But the Brewers' slugger has the longest track record: His home run-per-fly ball rate since the 2018 All-Star Game leads the Majors -- and Joey Gallo is the only other qualified hitter even close. So, Yelich seems like the best bet to make a run at history.

Off to a flying start

Yelich is clearly ahead of schedule, but there’s a caveat: This season featured the earliest Opening Day ever. McGwire and Sosa were the only players in our sample to begin a season in March, doing so March 31, 1998. Ruth’s '27 campaign didn’t begin until April 12. Yelich, meanwhile, knocked four dingers before the calendar even flipped to April.

But that schedule is about to catch up to Yelich. He has 98 team games left to play with, while our eight legends above averaged 106 team games remaining after June 7. Eight games doesn’t sound like much, but they could make all the difference when a player is chasing history -- Yelich homered eight times over an eight-game span from April 15-22.

Can’t rest during the dog days

Yelich will need to keep producing several more of those hot streaks, because history shows that 60-homer sluggers never really dipped throughout the summer.

Average AB per HR rate in 60-homer seasons, by month
May: 8.0
June: 8.4
July: 9.6
Aug.: 8.1
Sept.: 7.6

McGwire is the career at-bat per home run leader at 10.6, so Yelich has to keep outslugging Big Mac all summer long. The monthly rates above include some pretty incredible stretch-run surges. In 1961, Maris hit just one tater in April and had 13 on June 1 before launching 48 the rest of the way. Sosa had half of McGwire’s total at the start of June 1998 before knocking 20 to set a single-month record. Ruth began the last month of '27 with 43 dingers before compiling one of the most magical late-season pushes ever.

Yelich leads the NL with an 8.9 AB per HR rate, and he'll need to maintain that pace to set himself up for a final-month adrenaline push. But there’s a reason 60 homers remains one of baseball’s rarest feats: Opponents will pore over scouting reports, expose Yelich's few weaknesses or simply pitch around him altogether. FanGraphs’ Steamer system projects Yelich to finish with 43 homers, and those projections are conservative on purpose. It’s really hard for anyone, let alone one of the most talented players in today’s game, to keep slugging like Yelich has for nearly four more months.

But, if you count the 2018 stretch run, we've seen Yelich blow past those projections for nearly a full season running. He has 52 homers over the past calendar year, which is six more than anyone else and also well within the "margin of error" on a 60-homer campaign over a normal season. With the way he's swung the bat since last July, maybe it’s too early to count out history just yet.