Anyone who has paid attention to major-league baseball this season knows that the ball has been a hot topic. There's reason to believe the ball is juiced, which in turn has lead to nightly home-run derbies across the league. One byproduct of turning every ballpark into a launching pad is that, with just over a month to go in the season, a lot of records are about to fall -- including some whose endangerment was previously unnoticed or at least unnoted.
For example, consider that Wednesday no player hit two home runs in a game. It was the first time in 37 days -- since July 14 -- that the league hadn't featured at least one multi-homer game, according to USA Today. Here's more on that tidbit, via Scott Gleeson::
The MLB record as of 2016 for two-home run games was just 20 in a row. This year's streak eclipsed last year's 29-day streak from April 16-May 14, 2018.
Wednesday also saw the Baltimore Orioles yield their 258th home run of the season, tying the 2016 Cincinnati Reds for the most ever yielded in a single campaign. The Orioles have 35 games remaining this season. At their current pace, they'll end up surrendering about 329 dingers -- or, absurdly, 71 more than any other team in history.
Here are some other home-run tidbits worth keeping an eye on:
The single-season, league-wide record for home runs is 6,105, set in 2017. As it stands, MLB has 5,357 homers with about 1,000 total games remaining. If MLB plays a full season -- and who knows, since late-season delays can trigger cancellations -- and continues on this pace, then it will finish with approximately 6,830 home runs.
Another record that seems likely to fall is the number of individual multi-home run games in a season. The current mark is 396, also set in 2017. Yet this season already ranks third all time, with 349 games -- 43 more than the league had in 2018.
To take it another step, MLB is also likely to set a new single-season record for three-plus-homer games. Entering Thursday, the league had seen 20 such games. The record is 22, set in 2001.
As for the other team home-run record -- you know, hitting home runs instead of giving them up -- the Minnesota Twins have 244 dingers with 35 games to play. That puts them 24 away from breaking the 2018 New York Yankees record of 267. They're on pace for another 67 home runs, which would make them the first team in history to eclipse 300 homers.
If that wasn't enough, the Yankees (291), Los Angeles Dodgers (285) and Houston Astros (273) are all also on pace to hit more home runs than the current record.
Oh, and one more nugget: The Atlanta Braves, Seattle Mariners and Milwaukee Brewers could easily top 260 home runs. To this point in history, MLB has seen three teams ever do that -- this season could feature seven topping that threshold.
It's a minor miracle that no player has authored a four-homer game this year, thus tying the single-game record, and that no one is threatening Barry Bonds' single-season record. Instead, Cody Bellinger and Mike Trout, who are tied for the majors lead with 42, are on pace to finish with home-run totals in the low-to-mid-50s, provided they keep up their current trends.
That's still a lot, of course, given MLB has had just three 50-plus homer seasons in the past decade. Yet we'll leave you with this note: It's possible -- seeing as how four players have at least 40 dingers -- that MLB ties the single-season mark for most 50-homer seasons. The current record is four, set in both 1998 and 2001.
