The New York Yankees tied the single season MLB home run record on Friday night that was set by the Seattle Mariners during the 1997 season.
Prior to a rivalry game against the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees were four home runs shy of tying the Seattle Mariners single season home run record. Although the Yankees still had three games remaining in the season to accomplish this feat, they decided to hit all four home runs in one game.
Despite the Bronx Bombers being without sluggers such as Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Didi Gregorius, Gleyber Torres, Aaron Hicks, and more for various parts of the season, they were still able to tie a record that has been in place for over 20 years. Combining the injuries of their power hitters with the lack of power production from both Greg Bird and Brett Gardner this season, being able to reach this team home run total is very impressive.
The 1997 Mariners featured a 56 home run effort by Ken Griffey Jr. a 23 home run effort by Alex Rodriguez, and a 28 home run effort by Edgar Martinez. Although those are the household names around the MLB from that Mariners lineup, Paul Sorrento compiled 31 home runs and Jay Buhner compiled 40 home runs.
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After reaching the playoffs for the first time in franchise history in 1995, the Mariners returned to the playoffs for a second time in 1997. Although they were able to win the AL West for the first time in franchise history that year, they were defeated in the ALDS by the Baltimore Orioles when they only compiled a .391 slugging percentage (SLG) in 6 postseason games. In the regular season, they were able to compile a .485 SLG.
The Yankees offense is currently tied for first in the MLB with a .452 SLG this season. As the team relies heavily on home runs to score runs, they will likely be eliminated from post season contention if their slugging percentage decreased in the 2018 playoffs as much as it did for the Mariners in 1997.
Nonetheless, this group of Bronx Bombers is something special to watch. They are the first team in MLB history to have twelve different players reach at least 10 home runs in one season. They also have six players with 23 or more home runs on the season.
Recently, the Yankees also set a new franchise record when Luke Voit hit the teams 246th home run of the season, which coincidentally also came against the Red Sox.
To make things even better for the franchise, according to baseball-reference, the average age of this current team is only 27.3 years old, so they may have many years ahead of breaking their own team home run records. With two games remaining in the 2018 regular season, and the Yankees most likely heavily relying on their depth pieces, who is your guess to go deep to set the new all-time team home run record?