Dodgers have 6 players with 20 home runs for the first time ever

Yasmani Grandal hit a solo home run in the third inning on Tuesday against the Phillies, giving the Dodgers six players with 20 or more home runs in season for the first time in franchise history.

Grandal was just 2-for-38 (.053) in September before hitting the home run, his second straight season reaching the 20-home run threshold.

He joins Cody Bellinger, Yasiel Puig, Justin Turner, Corey Seager and Chris Taylor with 20 or more home runs, giving breaking the Dodgers’ record of five such players, set in 1979 and matched in 2000.

Turner, Seager, Taylor and Grandal have all hit their 20th home runs of the season on this current 10-game road trip.

The Dodgers are one of four teams in 2017 with at least six 20-homer players, joining the Cubs and Reds, as well as the Orioles, who are the only team in the last seven years with seven players with 20 or more home runs.

The Dodgers as a team have hit 206 home runs this season, just five shy of their franchise record of 211, set in 2000.

That 2000 team was led in home runs by Gary Sheffield with 43, and Eric Karros hit 31 home runs in his fifth 30/100 season in six years. Shawn Green hit 24 home runs in his first year in Los Angeles after getting acquired for Raul Mondesi, and would add 91 home runs in the next two seasons, including a franchise-record 49 in 2002.

Todd Hundley hit 24 home runs in just 90 games, combining with on-base machine and cap protector Chad Kreuter for one of the most productive catching tandems in Dodgers history. Adrian Beltre rounded out the quintet with 20 home runs in just his second full season, hitting .290/.360/.475 at age 21.

In 1979, the Dodgers had a disappointing season after two consecutive World Series berths, but the power was definitely in play. Just two years removed from being the first team with four 30-homer players, it was a different Dodger who led the way in 1979.

Davey Lopes was the first to join the 20-homer club in 1979, doing so in just 92 games. He never hit more than 17 home runs in any other season of his 16-year career, but there was Lopes at the All-Star break, tied for fourth in the National League in home runs, behind only sluggers Mike Schmidt (31 home runs), Dave Kingman (23) and Dave Winfield (22). The man Lopes was tied with for fourth place was George Foster, who led the majors with 52 home runs in 1977 and paced the National League with 40 in 1978.

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Lopes would end his 1979 season with 28 home runs, matching infield mates Steve Garvey and Ron Cey for tops on the team. They were joined by Dusty Baker, who was a part of the 30-homer quartet in 1977, and Joe Ferguson, in his second tour of duty with the Dodgers, mixing in time both in the outfield and behind the plate.

The 1979 Dodgers hit 183 home runs to lead the National League.

In all three seasons the Dodgers have had at least five players hit 20 home runs, the fifth player to join the group did so in the team’s 150th game of the season. Grandal gave this year’s Dodgers a sixth player in the team’s 151st game.