‘Easy Ed’ Encarnacion has a historic May

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Edwin Encarnacion homered two more times against the Kansas City Royals last night to bring his May total to 16. This tied Mickey Mantle for the Major League record for homers in the month of May.

Here’s what Encarnacion had to say about it:

“Unbelievable,” Encarnacion said. “If you asked me, am I going to hit 16 homers in one month? I’m going to say no. I never thought I’d hit 16 homers, but when you have the timing like I have right now, you have to keep going, keep swinging hard like the way I’ve been doing.”

It’s beyond unbelievable. This reminds me of that June in 1999 when Sammy Sosa hit over twenty. This is one of the premier power months in all of baseball history, and I wanted to note it on this blog.

For me, I found myself thinking about Encarnacion’s times as a Cincinnati Red. It’s hard to believe this incredible power hitter was once a Red, and it’s even harder to believe that I once had a Benihana dinner in downtown Cincinnati in his presence; watching him slam Lobster tails and tip the chef a huge amount of money with every prime cut of meat.

With the Reds mired in obscurity (they were shut out by Josh Collmenter last night, and he faced the minimum 27 hitters) it’s depressing to think that if they could have just been a little more patient with Encarnacion, they might be enjoying this offensive monster right now.

Still, I hold my little connection to ‘Easy Ed’ as we used to call him and I’m happy to see him making history elsewhere. I guess.