D-backs’ J.D. Martinez ties NL record with 16 home runs in September
Sep 27, 2017, 4:36 PM | Updated: Sep 28, 2017, 11:53 am
Arizona Diamondbacks' J.D. Martinez connects for a home run against the San Francisco Giants during the ninth inning of a baseball game Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017, in Phoenix. The Diamondbacks defeated the Giants 4-3. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder J.D. Martinez has been on fire in the month of September.
In the team’s final home game of the season, Martinez went out with a bang, tying Ralph Kiner’s NL home runs record of 16 home runs during the month of September in 1949.
This guy is absolutely insane. @JDMartinez14 with another opposite-field bomb and it's a 1-run game! #JustDingers pic.twitter.com/4pe26TAIOg
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) September 27, 2017
Martinez wasn’t done there in terms of records.
With his latest dinger, Martinez passed Luis Gonzalez for the D-backs’ record for most runs driven in in a month. He now has 36 in September, topping Gonzalez’s 35.
The homer in the ninth inning that contributed to the D-backs’ 4-3 walk-off win against the San Francisco Giants was a continuation of what has been a dominant month for Martinez.
Prior to Wednesday’s win, Martinez was hitting .414 for the month with 36 hits, 25 runs scored and an OPS of 1.464. The stat line will surely have Martinez as a lock for NL Player of the Month, not to mention him winning NL Player of the Week back-to-back in September as well.
The homer put Martinez at 45 for the season. While they all didn’t come with the D-backs, the team hasn’t seen a power hitter like him in quite some time.
That number would place him ahead of Mark Reynolds’ 44 in 2009 for the second-highest total for a season, trailing only Luis Gonzalez’s 57 home runs in 2001 for the top spot. Those two occurrences, in fact, are the only two times a D-back has hit at least 40 homers in a single season.
Per ESPN Stats and Info, Martinez’s 45 home runs in his first 116 games of the season make him only the seventh player to do so and the first since Barry Bonds in 2001.
