Homer-happy: MLB-record 1,135 HRs hit in May
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. connects on his sixth home run of the season, the 1,120th HR of May and the most in a single month in MLB history. (0:19)
More home runs were hit this May than in any other month in Major League Baseball history.
Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went deep in the eighth inning at Colorado on Friday, the final day of the month, to set the record with the 1,120th homer in May. The previous mark was set in August 2017.
Hitters needed to slug 25 home runs Friday to break the record and ended up hitting 40, bringing the historic final tally for May to 1,135 homers.
According to ESPN Stats & Information research, there was a homer every 25.0 at-bats in May, the highest in a month in MLB history.
Pittsburgh’s Josh Bell, Houston’s Alex Bregman and Cincinnati’s Derek Dietrich led the way with 12 home runs each in May. Bell’s dozen this month are as many as he had all of last season. With 17 on the year, Dietrich has already surpassed his best season tally in his seventh year in the big leagues.
Three teams hit at least 50 home runs in May — the Minnesota Twins (56), Chicago Cubs (51) and Boston Red Sox (51) — marking the first time in MLB history that three teams have reached that mark in the same month, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
The Twins fell only two shy of matching the record of 58 homers in a month shared by the 1987 Orioles and 1999 Mariners. Minnesota had nine players with at least four homers during the month to set a major league record.
With 2,279 homers on the year after Friday’s games, the league is on pace for 6,510 homers, which would easily surpass the single-season record of 6,105 set two years ago.
Hitters are averaging 2.68 home runs per game this year, well above the 2.52 average in 2017. Of all runs scored this season, 44.5 percent have come via homer, far more than the record of 42.3 percent in 2017, according to Elias Sports Bureau research.