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A new single month league-wide home run record was set in MLB in May. 1,135 home runs were hit across baseball this past month, surpassing the previous record of 1,119 in August of 2017. The full season home run record is on pace to be smashed again this season. In the DTBL, I don’t really have a reasonably easy way of determining if this same record was broken, but it is probably safe to assume if it wasn’t, we didn’t miss by much. There were 599 home runs hit by active DTBL players in May. As of this writing on the 6th of June, we are at 1,306 home runs for the season, which is easily above the pace of the record setting 3,231 DTBL homers way back in 2000. Just five years ago, 2014, there were 2,294 home runs hit the entire season. We figure to reach that mark before the end of July this year. And to think we haven’t even reached the dog days of summer when typically balls fly out of the park at an even higher rate.
On an individual player level, the DTBL did miss out on some of the month’s top home run production, however. Three of the six players who hit at least 10 home runs in May were not on active rosters for the full month. Only four of Josh Bell’s dozen homers were after he was activated by the Darkhorses. Derek Dietrich shocked and confused the baseball world by hitting a dozen homers as well, despite not garnering a DTBL player pool spot. And rookie Pete Alonso continues to make himself an intriguing draft candidate for next season as he slugged 10 home runs in May. Of players who actually did produce a full month of stats for DTBL teams, Alex Bregman led the way with 12 home runs, while a pair of Cougars, Jose Abreu and Kris Bryant each hit 10.
Meanwhile, things remain tight near the top of the DTBL standings. As the calendar turned to June, the Naturals held an ever so slight half point lead over the Kings and four other teams were five or fewer points behind the leader. Even the eight place team was within 15 points. So almost everybody remains alive and well heading into the summer months. May was a great month for the Naturals, in particular. Not only did they finish the month at the top of the standings, but their players swept the monthly awards as well. But first, here are the batters and pitchers of the week from May.
Batters of the Week:
Week 6 (4/29 – 5/5) – Alex Bregman, Darkhorses
Week 7 (5/6 – 5/12) – George Springer, Darkhorses
Week 8 (5/13 – 5/19) – Freddie Freeman, Demigods
Week 9 (5/20 – 5/26) – Rafael Devers, Moonshiners
Week 10 (5/27 – 6/2) – Austin Meadows, Demigods
Pitchers of the Week:
Week 6 (4/29 – 5/5) – Noah Syndergaard, Naturals
Week 7 (5/6 – 5/12) – Hyun-Jin Ryu, Naturals
Week 8 (5/13 – 5/19) – Joe Musgrove, Mavericks
Week 9 (5/20 – 5/26) – Brad Peacock, Demigods
Week 10 (5/27 – 6/2) – Max Scherzer, Kings
The Demigods are having a tough season so far, but they do keep racking up these weekly awards as DTBL Rookie of the Year candidate Austin Meadows has now won a pair of weekly honors sandwiching his time on the IL. Brad Peacock’s honor is notable because relief pitchers rarely ever win these awards. Of course, Peacock isn’t actually a reliever this season for the Astros, but still interesting. The Naturals had a whole bunch of players who had great months of May, led by a pair of NL West stars.
Batter of the Month:
Nolan Arenado, Naturals
.425 AVG, 9 HR, 29 RBI, 25 R, 0 SB, 3.29 PAR
Pitcher of the Month:
Hyun-Jin Ryu, Naturals
0.59 ERA, 0.679 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 36 K, 4.35 PAR
Nolan Arenado is leading the Naturals in every offensive category except stolen bases and is near the top of the league in most categories as well. The perennial All-Star and MVP candidate is quite possibly having his best offensive season so far in 2019. In May, he led the league with a ridiculous .425 average and 29 runs batted in. Cody Bellinger and Christian Yelich got off to a huge lead in the Batting PAR race in April, but in May, Arenado and his Rockies teammate Trevor Story started to close the gap. Already at 4.2, Arenado appears to be a lock to reach 6+ PAR for a fifth straight season. For the record, Darkhorses first baseman Josh Bell would have won this award had he spent the entire month on the active roster. Instead, Arenado won by a decent margin over Cougars shortstop Story and Moonshiners third baseman Rafael Devers. It was a strong month for left side of the infielders as Kris Bryant and Alex Bregman rounded out the top five.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the month was the eye-popping numbers posted by Naturals lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu. Unlike most of the game’s top pitchers, Ryu doesn’t strike out an overwhelming rate of hitters. Instead, he just never lets them reach base. His May ERA of 0.59 was the league’s lowest monthly total since Jordan Zimmermann’s 0.55 in April of 2016 (min. 30 IP). If you bump the inning threshold up to 40, then you have to go back to Jake Arrieta’s ridiculous final two months of 2015. Ryu’s 0.679 WHIP was similarly rare. Ryu currently leads the league in ERA (1.21), a full run better than second place Justin Verlander (2.27). Needless to say, if he were to somehow keep that up for the full season, he would break Greg Maddux’s record of 1.56 back in 1994. Ryu won this award in a landslide, a full point ahead of runner up Kyle Hendricks of the Moonshiners (Hendricks wasn’t activated until 5/6, so he probably didn’t actually finished second, but I’m too lazy to do the math). Last month’s winner, Kings veteran Justin Verlander was also in the mix.