2019 MLB season: The two-homer streak

Until Wednesday, it was five weeks since at least one player didn’t homer twice in the same game.

On July 15, barely a few days out of the All-Star break, seven players in six different cities all homered twice in the same game. Those seven started a trend that extended for a record 37 days during the 2019 MLB season.

During that splurge, which finally ended Wednesday, more than 70 players representing every major league team except the Miami Marlins participated in extending that record string. Dual home run games became so prevalent that fewer than a dozen times in the intervening 37 slates of games has only one player gone deep twice.

The 2019 MLB season is unique in that far more common is it for the streak to be extended two, three or more times in an evening.

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Tuesday night’s slate of contests were typical in this respect. In Atlanta, Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman ensured the streak’s continuation by homering in the fourth inning off Miami Marlins starter Elieser Hernandez and then repeating just one inning later off reliever Tyler Kinley.

But just a short time later into the evening, Chicago’s Anthony Rizzo took San Francisco starter Tyler Beede deep in the first inning and again in the third inning of Chicago’s 5-3 victory at Wrigley Field. Then to cap the night, Toronto rookie Dante Bichette salvaged a bit of glory from the Jays’ 16-3 beatdown at the hands of the home-standing Los Angeles Dodgers by homering in the first and sixth innings off Clayton Kershaw.

Just one night earlier, Seattle catcher Tom Murphy kept the streak alive through one of its sternest schedule challenges. With only nine games slated to be played Monday night, Murphy homered off Tampa Bay’s Brendan McKay in the first inning, then encored against Oliver Drake in the fifth.

Four players homered twice in a game three times during the streak, those four being the Yankees’ Gleybar Torres, Hunter Dozier of Kansas City, Minnesota’s now-injured Nelson Cruz and Boston’s Xander Bogaerts.

Torres and Dozier have the additional honor of having sustained the streak by doubling up on one of the relatively few nights when no other player did so. On Aug. 2 Dozier homered twice off Minnesota’s Martin Perez in an 11-9 defeat. Ten nights later, with the streak having reached 28 nights, the Yankees defeated Baltimore 11-8 in the second game of a double-header. Torres contributed home runs in the fifth and sixth innings.

Nine times during the streak, a player one-upped the two-homer requirement, crushing three home runs. Tampa Bay’s Chase d’Arnaud was the first to do so when he hammered James Paxton and Aroldis Chapman on the July 15 night when the streak began.

Cruz did so twice, hitting three on July 25 and again on Aug. 3.

The seven players who jointly began the streak were George Springer of Houston, Jordy Mercer of Detroit, Brandon Crawford of San Francisco, Edwin Encarnacion of New York, Cody Bellinger of Los Angeles, Tyler O’Neill of St. Louis and d’Arnaud. Since that explosion, the largest number of players to homer twice in the same night has been six. On Aug. 15 the White Sox’ Jose Abreu, Atlanta’s Josh Donaldson and Freddie Freeman, Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez and Carlos Santana, and Houston’s Michael Brantley all did so.

Two nights later Torres, Colorado’s Ryan McMahon,  Houston’s Yordan Alvarez, Texas’ Danny Santana, and Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun and Christian Yelich all homered twice in the same game.