Eric Thames Has Homered In Five Straight Games, Has More Home Runs Than The Entire Red Sox Roster
Eric Thames was a topic of discussion here on Barstool yesterday because the motherfucker hit five home runs over the weekend against the Reds, but then he went and did the damn thing again last night against the Cubs. His five straight games with a home run ties a Brewers franchise record, while his seven home runs on the year lead the majors, and he’s also out-homered the entire Red Sox roster coming into today (6).
Despite averaging 41 home runs a year over his three seasons in Korea, Thames’ signing in Milwaukee didn’t really send shockwaves throughout the baseball world. It’s no disrespect to him, really. It’s just that fans are obviously skeptical of the quality of the competition in the KBO if a guy who had Thames’ major league numbers back in 2011-12 could go over to Korea and instantly turn into Barry Bonds. It’s a fuckin’ awesome story, though.
Through his first 12 games of the season, he’s hitting .405 with a 1.479 OPS. He’s SLUGGING 1.000 right now. He’s SLUGGING that. There are only 17 players in the National League with an OPS that high, never mind a slugging percentage that high. And one of the biggest critiques of Thames from his first stint in the majors was that he couldn’t hit a curveball. He’s only seen 10 curveballs this year — three of them were balls, and seven of them were strikes. He took four of them for strikes, swung and missed at one, fouled one off, and put one in the seats last Thursday.
He’s on pace for 81 home runs, which I guess isn’t terrible.