8/4/2010 - And Then There Were Seven - Alex Rodriguez snapped his 12-game homerless streak Wednesday with a first-inning blast off of Shaun Marcum of the Toronto Blue Jays. Rodriguez becomes just the seventh player in major league history - and at 35 years old, the youngest ever - to reach 600 home runs. It took him 46 at-bats to reach #600 after hitting #599 on July 22, the longest drought for any player between those two milestones.

In the past ten years, the 600-Homer Club has more than doubled its membership from three players to seven. Or to put it another way, in the first century of modern Major League Baseball, only three players achieved the 600-homer milestone. In the past decade, four players have accomplished the feat.

Who's next? Among active players, Jim Thome is nearest to 600 with 577 career dingers while Manny Ramirez isn't far behind at 554. No other active player is within 150 home runs of the milestone.

The Texas Rangers have acquired left-handed pitcher Cliff Lee from the Mariners along with injured pitcher Mark Lowe and $2.25 million in cash considerations for first baseman Justin Smoak and prospects Blake Beavan, Josh Lueke, and Matt Lawson. Smoak was the only one of those four prospects ranked among the top 14 in the Rangers' organization by Scout.com this winter, and he currently sports a .670 OPS while playing half his games in a hitter's park. You have to wonder whether the Mariners got enough in return for Lee, particularly since they needed to include cash in the deal.

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