If you found yourself at the ballpark in the presence of either the Miami Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton or New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge, there’s a better-than-average chance you saw one of them go yard, as both are on pace to do damage to the record books.
Judge, who hit is 44th last night, is on pace to break the rookie home run record of 49 set by Oakland Athletics slugger Mark McGwire back in 1987; while Stanton is already at 55, putting him in contention to eclipse Yankee Roger Maris’ mark of 61 back in 1961 (the six slots ahead of Maris on the all-time list have fallen to McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds, all of whom have been suspected of using steroids). Stanton’s feat could be a chance to break the record “cleanly.”
But it’s not just these two guys who are at it. It’s all of baseball. The 2017 season is on pace to set the all-time home-run mark. As of Monday, the total stands at 5,677 dingers—just 16 shy of the record that fell 17 years ago.
“I don’t think that we are ever going to have a single explanation for exactly why we’ve see so many,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred told the Associated Press. “But players are bigger and stronger. They’re playing a little differently, in terms of the way they swing. Pitchers throw harder. The one thing I remain comfortable with: Nothing about the baseball, according to our testing, is materially different.”
Watch some of the longest home runs hit this season below.
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