It’s a good day to be a Nationals fan and a very, very bad day to be a Brewers pitcher. The Nationals hit eight home runs in their first four innings today; five of those home runs were off Michael Blazek in the span of six at-bats in the bottom of the third.
The Nats began their home run derby day with a bomb by Bryce Harper in the bottom of the first. Two innings later, the parade began.
After Blazek walked Max Scherzer, Brian Goodwin hit a homer to right; Wilmer Difo joined the party; Bryce Harper, again, smacked one out; Ryan Zimmerman hit one to left; Daniel Murphy made the first out of the inning with a fly ball to center. Finally, Anthony Rendon hit an absolute bomb to left-center, knocking Blazek out of the game with only one out in the inning.
All told, the Brewers faced 11 batters in the third.
The next inning, after giving up another two hits, Zimmerman went yard again for career home run 273, which matches Frank Howard for the most home runs in Washington baseball history. (For as much as the Nationals conflate their organization’s history with the Senators, the Nats are, after all, the progeny of the Expos.)
Jose Lobaton went deep as well in the bottom of the fourth, making the score 15-1. That brought the total homer count to eight in four innings, and these fans had clearly seen more than they could handle:
On the other side, Max Scherzer struck out nine and gave up only one run—also a home run.
The most home runs hit by one team in a game is 10, which happened in a Blue Jays-Orioles game in 1987. There have been five home runs in an inning only five times in history—and never have there been six—and four of those games have been against the Reds.
Additionally, four consecutive homers in an inning matches the all-time record (it’s happened seven other times). And Blazek becomes the first pitcher to ever give up more than four home runs in a single inning. The Brewers should probably get drunk as hell tonight.