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The 2016 Reds Have Given Up More Home Runs Than Any Team in History

The Reds set a record last night, and not one of the good ones.

Most baseball fans haven't paid much attention to the Cincinnati Reds this season. Given that they play in the same division as the Cubs, they've been out of the NL Central race since, oh, let's say the first week of May. They're currently tied with the Diamondbacks and Padres for the second-worst record in the NL: bad, but not remarkably bad.

But as Dirk Diggler once said, everybody has one special thing. For the 2016 Reds, that special thing is giving up taters. So, so many taters. On Monday night they turned yet another loss to the Cubbies into Major League history by giving up three home runs, bringing their season total to a record-breaking 242 homers allowed.

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The 2016 Cincinnati Reds have given up 242 home runs, more than any other team in MLB history. https://t.co/cvDSxa81xT
— StatMuse (@statmuse) September 20, 2016

Reliever Blake Wood served up the record-breaker to Jason Heyward—!!!— in the bottom of the eighth in a 5-2 defeat. The Heyward dinger was symptomatic of Cincinnati's season—the struggling outfielder had only hit six round-trippers in 551 plate appearances heading into that at bat.

The Reds have 12 games to go, putting them on pace to finish with 261 homers allowed, shattering the record held by a 1996 Detroit Tigers team that finished a pathetic 59-109. Most of the worst seasons for allowing home runs came in the late-90s/early-00s, a time when a parade of 'roided-up behemoths in matching goatees laid waste to offensive records.

After the loss, manager Bryan Price tried to explain Cincinnati's penchant for giving up the long ball:

"We certainly have to improve the quality of the talent and we have to get guys who can get the ball on the ground more often than we have this year. We've got a lot of fly-ball pitchers. It hasn't worked."

The Reds' home stadium—the infamous launching pad Great American Ballpark—does them no favors. Cincinnati now has three of the top 20 seasons in homers allowed, more than any franchise except, you guessed it, the Colorado Rockies.

So, yeah, acquiring some more ground-ball pitchers in the offseason couldn't hurt.

[MLB]