Back In the Home Run Groove

The Cincinnati Reds’ Scooter Gennett had a game for the ages last night.

Reportedly not even supposed to be in the Reds’ starting lineup last night, the ballplayer became the 17th major leaguer to hit four homers in one game in his team’s 13-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

What’s more, Gennett became the first player in Major League Baseball history to have four homers, five total hits, and 10 runs batted in in a single game.

Thus, Gennett did something that even sluggers like Babe Ruth never did, and that was to get four round-trippers in a game.

What makes this an even more amazing feat is that Gennett really isn’t a home run hitter, or at least, wasn’t prior to this particular game.

Before the game, he had just three homers for the season, although he was having a good season overall at the plate, hitting in the .270 range.

Now, with the four home runs and 10 RBIs under his belt, he has pushed his average over .300, and has seven homers and 30 RBIs for the season.

And for his career, in over 1,600 at bats, he now has 42 homers, so one wouldn’t call Gennett a power hitter by any stroke of the imagination.

The sad thing is in this post-steroid era, everyone remains suspect, whether you are Gennett, Aaron Judge, or just about every player.

Are they juiced … or perhaps is the ball juiced?

Home runs are up this year at this point in the season, and actually, have been increasing since the 2015 season.

There are plenty of theories on this, including that players are bigger and stronger today, good pitching is at a premium, and yes, the rumors about the players and the very ball they hit.

Baseball has stringent anti-PED policies, but that doesn’t mean that every PED is detectable. There might be some that aren’t.

As for the ball, balls used in MLB also have standards that have to be met, but that doesn’t mean that the balls used today are as tightly woven–or not as tightly woven–as those used in 2014, when home runs kind of bottomed out in baseball.

No one is saying Gennett has done anything untoward in achieving his feat, but baseball has been there, done that during the steroid era, and such feats of strength are always going to be questioned from hereon in.

Babe Ruth’s “PED” of choice was hot dogs and beer, and other dalliances that legends have been made from; others actually used pills and injections to achieve such feats.

Scooter Gennett is going to have to go with the flow, and there are some people who are going to question what he did.

But whatever the case, what he did was magnanimous, stupendous and unbelievable, and one would hope that everyone could leave it at that.