No juiced ball for the Arizona Diamondbacks and unbroken franchise HR record
By Trisha Garcia
The league has a new season home run record, but the Arizona Diamondbacks don’t…yet.
When Alex Gordon’s eighth home run of the season left the stadium in the eighth inning on Tuesday, it set a record for the most home runs hit across the league in a single season. It was the 5,694th ball to leave the park in 2017. The Arizona Diamondbacks have contributed 200 of their own, which is not a franchise record.
Two seasons saw more home runs than 2017…so far. In 1999, the Diamondbacks set a franchise record of 216 home runs that has yet to be broken. Even with the rumors of juiced baseballs, only five teams have more home runs in 2017.
Also, in 2001, the World Series-winning Diamondbacks hit 208 home runs during the regular season.
The original league record was set in 2000 at the height of the steroids era and between the Diamondbacks’ two highest years.
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Baseball’s current HR total is just over 5,700, with most teams averaging ten games left.
Entering play on Wednesday, 111 MLB players have 20 or more home runs. This is about an average of four per team, but the Diamondbacks only have three.
J.D. Martinez (40), Paul Goldschmidt (35) and Jake Lamb (27) are those three. The Los Angeles Dodgers have six players, while the Colorado Rockies have four.
Rounding out the bottom of the league, the San Francisco Giants don’t have any players with more than 20 home runs. Brandon Belt is the closest with 18, but the next player only has 13.
Surprisingly, the New York Mets lead the National League with 214 home runs as a team, but they’re sixth in the MLB to the top five American League teams.
More importantly, the Diamondbacks are leading the National League in extra-base hits. The team has collected 200 home runs, 295 doubles and 35 triples for 530 total XBH.
That’s 10 more than the Washington Nationals at a close second, but the Diamondbacks are only third in the Major Leagues. Both the Cleveland Indians (534) and the Houston Astros (560) have more than the Diamondbacks.
Amid the juiced-ball conspiracies, not even the N.L.-leading XBH tally is a franchise record for the Diamondbacks. In 1999, the two-year-old franchise totaled 551 extra-base hits. The closest the team has ever come to breaking that record was the 531 they tallied together in 2016.
However, the Diamondbacks still have ten games left in which they could easily break their own records.
"Do the Arizona Diamondbacks have two N.L. MVP candidates?"
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