Shannon Drayer points out on Twitter that Paul Konerko made it nine in a row tonight. He’s taken Mariners pitching deep that last nine times he’s faced the team in home games at U.S. Cellular.
The streak dates back to April of last year. The Mariners and White Sox played seven times in Chicago last year and Konerko homered in all seven games. Now he’s started this year 2-for-2 with homers the last two days.
Of course, it’s a pretty exclusive set of conditions, but it’s still a very notable streak, especially considering that no major leaguer has ever homered in more than eight games in a row. Only Dale Long (PIT, 1956), Don Mattingly (NYY, 1987) and Ken Griffey Jr. (SEA, 1993) have ever made it that far.
Also interesting is that Konerko has done nothing else at all during the streak. Tonight’s game is just in the third inning as of this writing, so we’ll ignore it for now. But in the first eight games, he had a total of 10 hits and nine RBI. Tonight’s homer, just like all of the others, was a solo shot.
