On a weekend during which the Twins honored hometown legend and line drive machine Joe Mauer with induction into the team's Hall of Fame, another local product paid homage to the 2019 Bomba Squad Twins — the first version of the team after Mauer's 2018 retirement.
Rookie Matt Wallner, a Forest Lake native, hit the final and most dramatic of the Twins' seven home runs in a three-game sweep of the Diamondbacks — a two-run, walk-off moon shot to right-center.
The Twins have now hit 153 home runs — eighth-most in the majors — and their offense remains remarkably tethered to the long ball. They've scored 501 runs this season, meaning more than 30% of their runs have come on home runs (not even counting how many men were on base).
All three of their Friday runs in a 3-2 win came on solo home runs, and they remain a mysterious and often frustrating team even as they have taken a 4 1/2-game lead in the AL Central — as Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday's Daily Delivery podcast.
Six different Twins have already reached double digits in home runs, with Wallner (seven) and red-hot Ryan Jeffers (eight) likely to be there within a few weeks. As a team, the Twins are on pace to hit 219 — well short of the record-breaking 307 they hit in 2019, but far more than a year ago (178).
Perhaps just as interesting, though, is that the Bomba Squad's home run record is in serious jeopardy this season.
My assumption was that the record might be safe for a long time because MLB was no longer using the juiced-up balls that went flying in 2019. Team leaders in the next two full seasons, 2021 and 2022, hit 262 and 254 home runs, respectively.
But this year, Atlanta has already hit 212 home runs in just 109 games. That's a pace for 315, which would break the Twins' MLB record with several taters to spare, Those include five off Joe Ryan during two innings of a game in June.
