Twins' Bomba Squad is back — but team's 2019 home run record is in danger

On a weekend during which the Twins honored hometown legend and line drive machine Joe Mauer with induction into the team's Hall of Fame, another local product paid homage to the 2019 Bomba Squad Twins — the first version of the team after Mauer's 2018 retirement.

Rookie Matt Wallner, a Forest Lake native, hit the final and most dramatic of the Twins' seven home runs in a three-game sweep of the Diamondbacks — a two-run, walk-off moon shot to right-center.

The Twins have now hit 153 home runs — eighth-most in the majors — and their offense remains remarkably tethered to the long ball. They've scored 501 runs this season, meaning more than 30% of their runs have come on home runs (not even counting how many men were on base).

All three of their Friday runs in a 3-2 win came on solo home runs, and they remain a mysterious and often frustrating team even as they have taken a 4 1/2-game lead in the AL Central — as Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday's Daily Delivery podcast.

Six different Twins have already reached double digits in home runs, with Wallner (seven) and red-hot Ryan Jeffers (eight) likely to be there within a few weeks. As a team, the Twins are on pace to hit 219 — well short of the record-breaking 307 they hit in 2019, but far more than a year ago (178).

Perhaps just as interesting, though, is that the Bomba Squad's home run record is in serious jeopardy this season.

My assumption was that the record might be safe for a long time because MLB was no longer using the juiced-up balls that went flying in 2019. Team leaders in the next two full seasons, 2021 and 2022, hit 262 and 254 home runs, respectively.

But this year, Atlanta has already hit 212 home runs in just 109 games. That's a pace for 315, which would break the Twins' MLB record with several taters to spare, Those include five off Joe Ryan during two innings of a game in June.

The Braves already have nine players in double figures in home runs (every lineup regular, including common thread Eddie Rosario with 16) as well as five players who have hit at least 20. Matt Olson has a team-best 39 long balls entering play Monday.

If Atlanta keeps launching homers at that rate, the Bomba Squad's place in history will fade away.

Here are four more things to know today:

*Reusse and I also talked about the crazy pace of conference realignment. It used to take years of secret deliberations before big-name schools shifted conferences. Now it seems like it takes 15 minutes to add two new teams to the 18-team Big Ten.

*Kenta Maeda has a 2.47 ERA in eight starts since returning from the injured list in late June, and the Twins are 6-2 in those games.

*The White Sox are a mess, and it's glorious.

*The biggest takeaway from Alexi Lalas' takeaway about the U.S. women's national team is that it's hard to score any goals when you put your foot in your mouth (as he did).