The baseballs are flying out of the ballparks all over the Major Leagues this year. Another record fell Monday night in Oakland, where the Houston Astros hit six — count ’em, six — homers in the first two innings of a 15-0 beat-down of the Athletics.
That record joins plenty of others to fall or that are in jeopardy. The Minnesota Twins already have the team record for home runs. The Los Angeles Dodgers already have the National League team record. Pete Alonso of the New York Mets is approaching the rookie record. The Yankees hit the most against any single opponent, in this case the Baltimore Orioles.
The list goes on. The homers keep flying. And the Astros are joining the party.
The #Astros are the first team in history to hit at least six home runs through the first two innings of a game.
— Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) September 10, 2019
Recapping the dingers
Let’s go through the homer rampage, one by one:
• Alex Bregman got the party started with one out in the first inning, hitting a three-run blast off of A’s starter Mike Fiers.
• Back-to-back alert: Rookie Yordan Alvarez hit the longest of the blasts following Bregman, a 429-foot shot that went way over the right-field fence.
• Three batters later, with two outs, catcher Robinson Chirinos joins the party with a two-run homer for a 6-0 lead after an inning.
• Second inning, same song. Jose Altuve, with a man aboard. 8-0.
• Back-to-back alert: Michael Brantley says hello, it’s 9-0, and that’s the end of the road for poor Mike Fiers.
• New pitcher is Nick Blackburn, but that’s no problem for Alvarez, who hits another long solo shot to right (416 feet this time) and makes it 10-0. That’s an Astros rookie record 24 for Alvarez and the record for the first two innings of a game.
Air Raid offense! pic.twitter.com/bxVJ7Nubq1
— Houston Astros (@astros) September 10, 2019
Unstoppable?
Chirinos added an RBI single later in the second inning for an 11-0 lead, and he hit another homer later as the Astros won 15-0. It was one thing when Houston beat hapless Seattle 21-1 on Sunday; this was the playoff-contending A’s, and the Astros pounded them, too.
Remember at the trade deadline, when the Astros became the World Series favorites after trading for Zack Greinke? Well, he and two relievers combined on a shutout Monday, and the pitching is undeniably spectacular.
But the Astros offense has been even more so. That’s 36 runs in the past two games and a whopping 11.2 runs per game during their five-game winning streak. Can anyone stop this team? Yankees? Dodgers? Buehler?
36 runs in the last 2 games 😤 pic.twitter.com/ByuDwF0vK5
— Houston Astros (@astros) September 10, 2019
