In the nightcap of a May 25 doubleheader in Kansas City, the Yankees held off the Royals, 6-5, without hitting a home run.
Since then, win or lose, homers have become a daily affair for this team.
The Yankees have homered in 29 consecutive games, surpassing the major league record of 27 set by the 2002 Texas Rangers. They can extend the record in two games at London Stadium this weekend.
The Yankees have hit 53 homers during the streak, which includes 16 games with multiple home runs. That means that a single blast kept the streak going 13 times. It nearly ended June 11 against the Mets, when Brett Gardner hit a homer in the bottom of the ninth with the Yankees trailing, 10-3. That extended the streak to 15 games, although few really noticed at the time.
All those homers haven’t exactly powered the Yankees to stratospheric heights in the standings. Oddly enough, their victory rate of 62.1 percent (18-11) over the span is a little worse than before it, 66.7 percent (34-17), though both rates are excellent. Going into Thursday’s action, the Yankees are seven games up in the American League East with the third best record in baseball.
The Yankees have hit 134 homers this season, fourth best in the majors, and are on pace to hit 271, which would surpass the M.L.B. record of 267 they set last year.
It’s not terribly surprising for the homer streak record to fall this year. Home runs have been increasing throughout baseball for years. Currently, teams are belting 1.36 homers a game, which would be yet another record, surpassing the average of 1.26 from 2017. The top 10 home run totals by teams have all been established since 1996.
This Yankees’ streak has been an ensemble effort; D.J. LeMahieu leads the team during the run with nine homers, while Gary Sanchez has hit eight and Gleyber Torres seven.
Surely few would have expected a streak like this without significant contributions from the team’s two biggest hitters, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, who have lost much of the season to injury. Each has just one home run during the streak, and now Stanton is hurt again, probably out until August.
The 2002 Rangers, the previous streak record holders, hit a total of 230 homers and had sluggers performing at or nor their peaks. The one-two punch was Alex Rodriguez (with a career-high and league-leading 57) and Rafael Palmeiro (43). But the Rangers’ pitching was poor, and they finished in last place at 72-90. Their streak ran from mid-August to early September and included two five-homer games; the Yankees had a seven-homer game this season, but no game in the streak has yielded more than four.
The team record the Yankees broke is more venerable, set in 1941. Though those Yankees had only 151 home runs, minuscule by modern standards, they managed to put together a 25-game streak lasting almost the whole month of June.
There must have been something especially streaky about that team. The Times story of July 2 duly noted that “the New York record of hitting homers in successive games was halted at 25 contests.” But that detail was overshadowed by a streak of a different kind. The headline: “Yankee Star Hits 44th Game in Row; DiMaggio Bats Safely in Two Contests to Equal Keeler’s All-Time Major League Mark.”
How much longer can the 2019 Yankees expect to keep hitting homers? One of many considerations is math. The Yankees have homered in 69 of 80 games. If they can keep up that 86 percent rate (last year they homered in 81 percent of their games, so it’s not an absurd notion), statistically they are likely go four to five more games before the streak ends. The chances are 23 percent to extend the streak 10 more games.
Not every fan loves the modern boom in home runs (and strikeouts), but given the trends, long streaks like this one could be common in the future. Besides the 27-game streak by the Rangers, eight teams have had at least 22-game streaks this century.
Big-hitting teams like the Twins, Mariners and Brewers have all homered in more than 80 percent of their games this season. Any team that can do that has a 10 percent chance of putting together a streak of 25 games.
Without extending their record, the Yankees may not hold onto it for long.