Home runs have been hit at a record pace in Major League Baseball this season, and that is especially true for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Dodgers not only lead the National League in homers, but they recently set their franchise record for most longballs in a season, and there is still a month to go. The NL team record for home runs in a season is 249, set by the 2000 Houston Astros, and will likely be broken by L.A. this year.
Additionally, the Dodgers set another franchise record during Monday night’s game against the Colorado Rockies as Chris Taylor hit his 10th home run of the season, giving the club 11 players with double-digit homers for the first time. Taylor also went deep again later in the game to bring his total to 11.
The Dodgers’ 11 players to reach double digits in home runs is also an NL record. Perhaps the most impressive aspect about the record is the variety amongst the players that made it happen.
Cody Bellinger, of course, leads the way in that category with a league-leading 44 home runs. The other Dodgers with at least 10 are Max Muncy (33), Joc Pederson (30), Justin Turner (26), Kiké Hernandez (17), Will Smith (13), Corey Seager (12), Alex Verdugo (12), David Freese (10) and A.J. Pollock (10).
Bellinger, Muncy, Pederson, Turner, Hernandez and Pollock were players that can have at least 10 home runs penciled to their name before the start of the season.
But Seager is in his first season coming off Tommy John and hip surgeries, Freese and Verdugo began the year as primary bench players and Smith did not receive a Major League call-up until June, so for all of them to also reach the milestone is noteworthy.
There is potential to extend that record to 12 players if Matt Beaty can hit two more in the remaining 22 games of the season as he slugged his eighth on Monday night.
In 2018, the Dodgers set both franchise and NL records with seven players reaching the 20-home run milestone. It is not impossible for them to match or surpass that this season, but that may be unlikely to happen.
