Randy Arozarena breaks all-time single postseason home run record

Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Randy Arozarena is swinging a hot bat again, and has set a new single season postseason home run record.

After kicking off the World Series with back-to-back homerless games, Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Randy Arozarena is hot again in record-breaking fashion.

Arozarena’s fourth-inning shot off Dodgers starter Julio Urías in Saturday night’s Game 4 secured his spot as the all-time leader in home runs for a single postseason. The blast was his ninth of the 2020 MLB playoffs and second in the span of five innings, after he hit his record-tying eighth off reliever Kenley Jansen in the bottom of the ninth in Game 3.

That homer tied Arozarena with Barry Bonds (2002), Carlos Beltran (2004) and Nelson Cruz (2011) for eight, the all-time mark.

Saturday night’s blast put the rookie in a league of his own. Urías’ first pitch of the bottom of the fourth was taken for a ride by Arozarena, who sent it into the right-centerfield bleachers – an opposite-field shot.

The homer off Jansen ultimately didn’t make a difference in Game 3’s outcome, as it cut a five-run deficit to four and the Rays lost moments afterward, but the Game 4 solo shot cut the Dodgers’ deficit in half – from two runs to one – and gave the Rays their first run of the ballgame.

Arozarena was called up on Aug. 30 and hit seven homers in the span of less than a month before the playoffs began. He has more than outdone his regular-season performance and has at least one more game to add even more to the total.

Fellow Rays outfielder Hunter Renfroe followed with a homer of his own an inning later, once again bringing Tampa Bay within one after Los Angeles scored in the top of the fifth.