Tuesday night in Boston, Chris Davis belted his 51st home run of the season and become the Baltimore Orioles franchise leader in home runs in a single season. Davis passed Brady Anderson, who hit 50 in 1996, with a shot to centerfield that tied the game at two.
As MASNSports.com’s Roch Kubatko points out, 23 of Davis’ 51 homers have tied or given the Orioles a lead this season.
Davis is the third player in major league history to hit 50 or more homers and 40 doubles in a single season, joining Babe Ruth (59 homers, 44 doubles in 1921) and Albert Belle (52 homers, 50 doubles in 1995). He’s the first player in Orioles history to hit 40 doubles and 40 homers in a single season.
Got to give Zach, JAB, Patrick, and Lund credit here. They said from the onset that offense wouldn’t be the O’s problem (remember when that guy we used to know said we need a #4 hitter?!?) Between Jones and Crush, the offense has been the least of this team’s problems. Congrats to Chris!
Don’t give Zach credit for anything. He questioned Crush from the beginning of the year. Didn’t trust him to play first base.
I questioned his ability to be a reliable defensive every day first baseman, too. Showalter kept saying that Davis was a good defender – I wrote it off as coachspeak.Glad to have been proven wrong. I would say he’s been above average this season – and his picks were on display last night.
Davis arrived at ST early this season to work on his fielding – guess it paid off.
The boys on BSR bodily predicted 40 home runs for Davis and a Gold Glove for Manny. I nearly fell off my chair with the 40 homer prediction, but here he sits at 51 and counting.
Don’t remember the boys predicting rough things at first base for Chris, but also don’t doubt it either. If you can honestly say you thought Chris Davis would play anywhere near the level he has this year- perhaps gold glove level himself- then maybe you should be picking NFL winners with JAB and not wasting your time just commenting. I’d say you have some kind of special gift if you saw Davis playing the brand of defense he’s played this year. Don’t waste hat gift!
He was never given a fair shake at first to begin with…”we need a first baseman” was the cry from the fanbase all offseason long. Glad that Buck is steering the ship, not the fans. Otherwise we’d be under the weight of Adam Dunn’s enormous contract and/or Adam LaRoche’s multi-year deal. For fans to say he wasn’t good enough to play was laughable mainly because, we hadn’t seen him play a full season there!