September 1, 2021

By Neil Munro

Canadian Baseball Network

When Vladimir Guerrero Jr. connected for his 39th home run of the 2021 campaign last night, he broke a logjam of Canadian players that had been tied for the second-best home run total in a single season.

Soon to be Hall-of-Fame inductee, Larry Walker (Maple Ridge, B.C.), Matt Stairs (Fredericton, N.B.), Freddie Freeman (dual Canadian-American citizenship), and, of course, Guerrero himself, had been holding down the runner-up spot with 38 home runs each. The table below lists the top 25 best seasons for Canadians, in terms of home runs hit. Walker is the only player on that list to have led his league in home runs when he connected for 49 dingers in his MVP season in 1997. Vladdy still has an outside chance to catch Shohei Ohtani for the American League home run title in the last month of this season.

Single Season Best Home Run Performances by Canadians

Notes: Freeman was born in California and hold dual USA-Canadian citizenship. Batting totals for Guerrero, Votto and Freeman are through games of August 31, 2021

In case you’re wondering where Larry Walker stood at the end of August in 1997, here are the comparable records for Guerrero and him to that point in their respective campaigns.

Clearly, Guerrero has a chance to set the all-time single-season mark for home runs hit by a Canadian. As well, you can see what a dominant performance that Walker produced in his fine season.

Since both Votto and Freeman have hit 28 home runs to this point in the year, you may be wondering which Canadian duo produced the highest combined home run total for a single season. That honour goes to Walker and Stairs for their efforts in amassing 76 home runs in the 1997 season. Stairs had 27 homers in just 352 at bats that season, his breakout year in becoming a regular in the batting lineup.They followed up that season with a combined 75 home runs two seasons after that. Right now, Guerrero and Votto (or Freeman) rank fourth among Canadian duos with 67 combined round-trippers to this point in the year. They will soon pass the 69 home runs that Jason Bay and Justin Morneau collected in the 2006 season. Ten more combined homers will allow them to set the all-time record (for Canadians).

Another milestone so to speak was also reached by Abraham Toro (Longueil, Que.) last night when he broke up a scoreless tie between his Seattle Mariners and the Houston Astros with the first grand slam home run of his young career. Toro has been an excellent mid-season pick-up for the Mariners as he has stepped into a regular spot in their lineup at second base. Thanks in part to his blossoming, Seattle finds itself in a race for one of the two wild-card spots in the American League. They will have a tough go of it however, since New York, Boston and Oakland (and hopefully the Blue Jays) will be hard to catch.

Toro was languishing, mostly on the bench, behind all-star Jose Altuve in his first two years with Houston. He filled in occasionally at three different infield positions with the Astros, but second base has always been his primary infield station. Since coming over to Seattle on July 27, Toro has batted .311 and provided dependable fielding prowess in the middle infield. Toro now joins the ranks of the other Canadian batters who have connected for at least one grand slam home run (given in the tables below).

Canadian Ball Players Hitting Grand Slam Home Runs

Canadian Citizens Born Outside of Canada

It might seem surprising that Walker, Votto and Freeman are not featured a little higher up on the list above, in light of their impressive career home run totals. In fact, these three players have almost always hit third in the batting lineup (and even batted second for significant periods of time). Thus, there would always be at least one batting appearance in each game in which it was not possible to come to bat with the bases loaded.

In case you are wondering if the games last night provided another instance when three Canadians slugged a home run in the same day, it was not to be. The game between Cincinnati and St. Louis that would have featured Votto and Tyler O’Neill, was rained out as hurricane Ida moved inland.