Welcome to the first day of July. We just had quite the month.
Scooter Gennett hit four home runs in one game. Aaron Judge blasted a 496-foot moon shot. A player has hit at least two home runs in a game 72 different times -- from Rene Rivera and Chris Gimenez to Franchy Cordero and Cory Spangenberg. Cody Bellinger hit two home runs in a game four times, and Jose Reyes hit two off Clayton Kershaw just a few innings apart.
If it seems like you saw a lot of home runs in June, it's because you did. It was the most homer-happy month in major league history. There were 1,101 home runs in June, breaking the record of 1,069 set in May 2000. With home runs trending ever upward, this was no surprise: There were 1,060 home runs hit in May and 1,053 last August. We've come a long way from June 2014, when there were just 711 home runs -- which makes this June a near-50 percent increase in home runs from three years ago.
Other interesting tidbits from the month:
There was at least one multihomer game every day of the month except June 27.
There have been four days with at least 50 home runs; prior to this year, there had been just two seasons with at least four 50-homer days (2000, 2016).
A home run was hit every 25.4 at-bats, a record rate for any month and continuing a trend that started in August 2015. Nine of the 10 highest home run rates in a month have come since then, a drastic increase from even July 2015, when a home run was hit every 34.7 at-bats.
There were 5,610 home runs in 2016, the second-highest single-season total behind the 5,693 hit in 2000. We're on pace for 6,133 home runs in 2017.
So, what's caused this barrage? It's clearly the ball, as Rob Arthur of FiveThirtyEight wrote earlier this week. Ben Lindbergh and Mitchel Lichtman of The Ringer also collected dozens of game-used baseballs from previous seasons and found the ball became bouncier midway through 2015. The seams on the ball also became lower, something Mets manager Terry Collins and a few players have suggested. Arthur's math demonstrates that lower seams create less air resistance, and even the smallest change he calculated can add five feet to a fly ball. In other words, balls caught at the warning track a few years ago are now leaving the yard.
Of course, the fancy math only verifies what we see with our eyes with the daily onslaught of long home runs sailing 430-plus feet into the night. I thought it would be fun to go back and compare this June to May 2000, when guys like Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa -- and many others! -- were launching moon shots of their own.
The most obvious difference is the nature of the names on the leaderboards. Here are the home run leaders from May 2000: Mark McGwire (13), Mo Vaughn (13), Todd Helton (11), Barry Bonds (10), Carlos Delgado (10), Brian Giles (10), Richard Hidalgo (10) and Edgar Martinez (10). Those eight players had combined for 1,797 career home runs entering the month and 26 All-Star appearances. In 1999, they hit a combined 289 home runs -- all except Hidalgo and Martinez had hit at least 30 home runs.
Now, here’s the June 2017 leaderboard: Cody Bellinger (13), George Springer(11), Matt Adams (10), Ryon Healy (10), Aaron Judge (10), Mike Zunino (10), Justin Smoak (10), Scooter Gennett (9), Gary Sanchez (9), and Joey Votto (9). Those 10 players had combined for four All-Star appearances, all of which belong to Votto. In 2016, they hit a combined 151 home runs, with nobody reaching 30. In other words, the guys in 2000 were mostly big names. Some of them might have been juiced up, but at least they were juiced-up stars. The 2017 list is just … kind of random.
Rookies Bellinger and Judge certainly appear on their way to becoming big names, but nobody could have predicted this kind of production from them. Judge has 27 home runs in 76 games; he hit 23 in 120 games between Triple-A and the majors last year. Bellinger has 24 home runs in just 62 games — after hitting 26 in the minors in 2016. Springer is certainly a good player having a monster season, but Votto was the only established star entering the season.
The season leaderboard is sort of similar, with Logan Morrison and Mike Moustakas among the 14 players with at least 20 home runs. Moustakas has 21 home runs and could surpass his career high (22) by the All-Star break. Morrison is one away from matching his career high. These are guys who have been in the league and are suddenly on pace for 40 home runs.
I mean, no offense to Scott Schebler, but Schebler is on pace for 42 home runs. Home runs are cheap these days, and everyone and anyone is hitting them.
Here's another big difference between 2000 and June 2017. I checked the home run leaders through June 2000. There were 30 players with 20-plus home runs, led by McGwire with 29 -- although he injured his knee in early July and hit just three more in limited playing time the rest of the season. The average age of those 30 players was 29.7, including 15 in their age-30 season or older. The average age of the top 33 players through Wednesday in 2017 -- the top 30 plus ties -- is 27.7, with nine in their age-30 season or older. The oldest player on the 2017 list is 34-year-old Edwin Encarnacion. The 2000 list included six players 34 or older -- Martinez, McGwire, Bonds, Steve Finley, Rafael Palmeiro and David Justice. The aging curve has changed in baseball as the game now skews younger than it did 17 years ago, but one likely reason it skews younger is that PEDs helped prolong careers a generation ago.
The biggest difference between the two seasons, however, is simply the monster batting lines from 2000. Check out some of the numbers through June 30 of that season:
Mark McGwire: .300/.479/.754, 29 HRs, 62 RBIs
Barry Bonds: .315/.444/.743, 28 HRs, 57 RBIs
Todd Helton: .384/.481/.734, 21 HRs, 68 RBIs
Mike Piazza: .364/.429/.715, 22 HRs, 68 RBIs
Vladimir Guerrero: .365/.430/.713, 22 HRs, 67 RBIs
Carlos Delgado: .356/.462/.705, 27 HRs, 72 RBIs
Ivan Rodriguez: .362/.392/.691, 23 HRs, 66 RBIs
Gary Sheffield: .337/.443/.689, 27 HRs, 70 RBIs
Edgar Martinez: .352/.445/.680, 22 HRs, 80 RBIs
Jeff Kent: .355/.438/.679, 21 HRs, 78 RBIs
Jeffrey Hammonds was hitting .382 with 61 RBIs in 54 games, Nomar Garciaparra was batting .396, and Darin Erstad was batting .374 with 16 home runs! Absolutely insane numbers.
Obviously, the superior pitching in 2017 plays a part in the numbers, but many of the sluggers today are just that: one-dimensional sluggers. Home run or strikeout. Put it this way: Of those 30 players with at least 20 home runs in 2000, 20 of them were hitting above .300. Of the 14 players with 20 home runs in 2017, only three are also hitting .300:
Here's the interesting thing about 2000: The batters slowed up in the second half. The leaguewide slugging percentage fell from .448 in the first half to .428. The rate of home runs fell from one every 27.0 at-bats to one every 32.7. Fifteen players ended up slugging .600, not 26 (and nobody finished above .700). Five players hit .350, not 14. Sammy Sosa ended up as the home run leader with 50, while 16 players hit 40.
I don't know if pitchers adjusted, the balls changed or the PEDs wore off, but something changed. It makes you wonder what will happen in July. Will the onslaught continue? Will the Scheblers of the world slow down? Will Judge and Bellinger challenge McGwire's rookie record of 49 home runs? I don't see any sign things are going to slow down, but as we saw in 2000 or in August 2015, the nature of the game can change suddenly.
Thanks to Lee Singer and ESPN Stats & Info for research help.