Enchanted April Greeted Mlb Hitters

Baseball’s longest April saw plenty of long balls.

There were 826 homers in 359 games for an average of 2.30, up 64 percent from the 1.40 average in 1992, the last year before expansion and 3.6 percent higher than April 1994.

Runs were up 28 percent from 1992, to an average of 10.58, which is 1.7 percent higher than two years ago.

Texas (26), Minnesota (24) and Montreal (21) all scored 20 runs in a game, the first time three teams did in one month since June 1950.

On April 24, teams scored 195 runs for an average of 13.93 per game, a modern record for days with 14 or more games, according to research by the Elias Sports Bureau.

Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield and Brady Anderson hit 11 homers apiece in the month, matching the major-league record for April shared by Willie Stargell (1971), Mike Schmidt (1976) and Graig Nettles (1974).

Montreal became the first team to hit six grand slams in a month, topping the record set by Baltimore in September 1983 and matched by Seattle in August 1985.