Josh Hamilton vs. Hack Wilson

Josh Hamilton smacked four home runs for the Texas Rangers on Tuesday night against the Baltimore Orioles. He drove in eight runs in the game, giving him 36 RBIs this season.

Here's a glance at Hamllton's numbers relevant to the chart below that:

Hamilton has appeared in 27 of the Rangers' 30 games this season. At his current pace of playing in nine out of every 10 games for the Rangers, and driving in an average of 1.33 runs per game, Hamilton would drive in 192 runs and break the single-season RBI record that has stood for 81 years.

Hack Wilson drove in an MLB-record 191 runs during the 1930 season with the Chicago Cubs.

Of course, that can't possible happen, right? Odds are against it, of course, based on the list of the top 21 RBI seasons in MLB history. Note that only two of them occured after the 1930s.

It may be preposterous to believe Hamilton could continue this pace and set the record, but baseball is all about numbers. So, here are a few more numbers: Hamilton played in 156 games in 2008, but in the three seasons since, he hasn't appeared in more than 133.