7/04/2025

Fireworks?


It's the 4th of July. Happy Independence Day! I believe that lots of people are going to watch fireworks today. In baseball, many teams set fireworks after a player from the home team crushes a home run.

 

When it comes to fireworks, I began to think about a question. Which players actually crushed a lot of home runs in July? To solve my doubts, I decided to check on the statcast website.

 

Home Runs (July, 2021~2024)

Player

HR

Austin Riley

34

Manny Machado

31

Shohei Ohtani

29

Matt Olson

Juan Soto

28

Aaron Judge

25

Rafael Devers

Pete Alonso

 

Looking back at stats from 2021 to 2024, there are some household names on the list. Well, the main reason that I only took a look at stats from 2021 to 2024 is that some statcast data was missing or incomplete in 2020. So, to make things easier, we only checked the stats over the last 4 seasons.

 

Austin Riley made his MLB debut in 2019. So far in his career, he has 160+ home runs. From 2021 to 2024, Riley smashed 34 home runs in July. In particular, he had a great month of July in 2022. Back then, Riley blasted 11 home runs in 26 games. And he was the NL player of the month in July 2022.

 

Moreover, Manny Machado has played in the majors for 14 years. By far in his career, he has 300+ home runs. From 2021 to 2024, he crushed 31 home runs in July. In 2023, Machado smashed 11 home runs over 25 games in July.

 

In addition, Matt Olson has played in the majors for 10 seasons. Olson now has 200+ home runs thus far in his career. From 2021 to 2024, Olson blasted 29 home runs in the month of July. At the same time, 3-time MVP award winner Shohei Ohtani smashed 29 home runs as well. Ohtani used to crush 9 home runs in July 2021 and in July 2023. Back then, he was playing for the Angels.

 

Furthermore, Juan Soto, who inked a huge contract in the offseason, has 200+ home runs so far in his career. From 2021 to 2024, Soto smashed 28 home runs in the month of July. In particular, back in 2021, when Soto was playing for the Nationals, he had 9 home runs in July.

 

Finally, there are some home run hitters that we can’t ignore. Over the last 4 seasons, Aaron Judge, Pete Alonso and Rafael Devers each blasted 25 home runs in July. In July 2022, Aaron Judge was the AL Player of the Month. In that month, he amazingly smashed 13 home runs over 25 games. Alonso had 10 home runs over 27 games in July 2021.

 

So, July just began. Over the last 4 seasons, certainly, several players have shown that they smash 10+ home runs in the month of July. With Austin Riley and Matt Olson in the lineup, can we see the Braves crush many home runs this month? In the meantime, Pete Alonso and Juan Soto are teammates now. It will be interesting to see whether they can hit many home runs in their “first July.”

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