The Twins’ record breaking Bomba Party could be spoiled by The Evil Empire. Can we or can’t we have nice things?

For much of the season, ah, this magical season, the Twins have been lauded for smackin’ dingers, bombas, dongs and plain ol’ home runs. Sure, I was thrilled with our best record in baseball (see May), and a GOOD FreeAgent SIGNING (Thanks, Boomstick), and who doesn’t love them some La Toruga (#BringBackWillians). But by mid-May it was clear that somehow this band of young sticks and no-names and barely names (certainly not All-Stars, right Max Kepler?) was turning the "live ball" and modern swing planes into their collective-personal assault on a record that is supposed to be the hallmark of Big Payroll teams that can buy muscle like the Cosa Nostra. You know who I’m talking about.

Wishing to revel in the lovely summer fun of this special team, I spent an hour collecting and assembling HR stats that are probably easily accessible somewhere on the interweb, and putting together some graphs like the stat-head that I MOST ASSUREDLY AM NOT. As I looked at the stats, some basic things stared back at me, Many of them good.
Since the 50th game on May 24th, (34-16 record, Projected Season Dingers 327) the ding-dongs have tapered off a bit, but stayed at crazy high by historical standards. The projected number would be expected to flatten out as the sample size becomes a larger fraction of the total, but this seems to show a real steadiness of production. The Twins have only gone homer-less in back-to-back games four times this season, and half of that set occurred in the first five games of the season! This is through 132 games.

Some fun things show up (those eight homer games are pleasant memories in the old scrapbook of the mind) but something else started to show up, too. I saw frequent mention of the team that is second in homers this season. Yep. The Yankees. And of course, they shattered the record last year. So wouldn’t it be sweet to take that bauble from them? Sure would!

Indeed it looks like we will. HR Stats for the two teams through 132 games look like this.

But there is this little caveat I would point to as we count our chickens. The PinStripe Boyz have played 135 games and added 9 dingers in those three games. And a lead of 32 homers (214 to 182) after 110 games had shrunk to 18 (256 to 238) after 132. And with their 3 extra games played, it’s only a difference of 9. And when you look at HR per game, You can see that the Yanks really look quite our equal.

So, no, I not a doomsayer, and I don't REALLY think the wheels will fall off, but the Vikings fan in me is looking to stock up on vodka and beer. Because if after all this wonderfullness, it ends up being the Yankee's year, well, I don't want to have a clear memory of that.