LAD May Home run Leaderboard

Phil Gurnee ♦ June 1, 2017 ♦ 1 Comment

Cody Bellinger blasted nine home runs in May. How does that stack up historically?

Pretty good.

Only two players have hit ten home runs in the month of May. Mondesi did it twice, and Shawn Green when he destroyed the Brewers in 2002.

Bellinger joins a select group of eight players who have hit nine home runs in the month of May. Hey look, Joc Pederson. The only surprise to me on this list is Davey Lopes. Lopes would go onto hit 28 home runs in 1979, his career high before that was seventeen and he would never hit over 20 home runs again. Todd Hundley hit 24 home runs in back to back years for the Dodgers so that isn’t that big of a surprise but nine in one month out of 24 is pretty good % of his total in one month of baseball.

Player           Split Year HR  PA   OPS TB
Raul Mondesi       May 1998 10 123  .946 73
Raul Mondesi       May 1999 10 117 1.034 70
Shawn Green        May 2002 10 120 1.127 68
Reggie Smith       May 1977  9 118 1.039 62
Davey Lopes        May 1979  9 127 1.039 74
Ron Cey            May 1981  9 119  .997 65
Pedro Guerrero     May 1987  9 108 1.127 68
Mike Piazza        May 1996  9  94 1.193 58
Todd Hundley       May 2000  9  79 1.139 50
Joc Pederson       May 2015  9 123  .860 55
Cody Bellinger     May 2017  9 118  .880 60

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/1/2017.

One other note, I added the total base column, and Davey Lopes had the most total bases for this group. Which makes me wonder what the May leaderboard for total bases looks like. I’m going to guess that Davey Lopes just might sit on top of that leaderboard. Let’s find out:

Player               Split Year  SLG 2B 3B HR TB
Yasiel Puig            May 2014 .731 10  1  8 79
Davey Lopes            May 1979 .661  8  3  9 74
Raul Mondesi           May 1998 .629  9  0 10 73
Nomar Garciaparra      May 2006 .625 14  1  4 70
Raul Mondesi           May 1999 .667  6  1 10 70
Shawn Green            May 2002 .694  5  1 10 68
Raul Mondesi           May 1994 .636 11  3  5 68
Pedro Guerrero         May 1987 .701  4  0  9 68
Pedro Guerrero         May 1982 .619  6  3  6 65
Ron Cey                May 1981 .619  7  0  9 65
Eric Karros            May 1995 .571  4  0  8 64
Kirk Gibson            May 1988 .627  8  1  7 64
Steve Garvey           May 1974 .533  7  0  5 64
Eric Karros            May 2000 .649  8  0  8 63
Mike Piazza            May 1994 .624  6  0  6 63
Pedro Guerrero         May 1981 .649  5  1  7 63
Dusty Baker            May 1977 .636  6  0  7 63
Raul Mondesi           May 1996 .549  6  0  8 62
Reggie Smith           May 1977 .633  2  2  9 62
Corey Seager           May 2016 .540  6  0  7 61
Tommy Davis            May 1962 .540  4  2  5 61
Cody Bellinger         May 2017 .566  5  1  9 60
Andre Ethier           May 2012 .594 11  0  4 60
Shawn Green            May 2000 .667 10  1  5 60
Steve Garvey           May 1979 .526  6  0  6 60
Jim Wynn               May 1974 .706  4  2  7 60
Ron Cey                May 1973 .612  4  3  5 60
Willie Davis           May 1961 .577  5  2  7 60

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/1/2017.

Nope, it was the great May of 2014 by Puig. At the time Puig had given the Dodger one year of brilliant hitting and you could hear talk of MVP. You don’t hear that talk anymore.

I made the cutoff 60 total bases to see how Bellinger stacked up. He’s fairly far down the list.