Amid yet another burst of homers, Chris Davis hits 44th

Chris Davis is surging again after hitting a long home run in Arizona. [Mark J. Rebilas/USA Today Sports] Orioles homered for the fourth time in six games

Chris Davis is surging again after hitting a long home run in Arizona. [Mark J. Rebilas/USA Today Sports]

Orioles

homered for the fourth time in six games

Facing the Diamondbacks' Randall Delgado in a scoreless game in the fourth inning in Arizona, Davis connected with a 91 mph fastball on the inside corner of the strike zone, driving it a long, long way for a two-run homer:

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Since coming to the Orioles last year, Davis has shown a penchant for hitting homers in bunches. Twice last year, he hit three homers over a four-game span, once he hit five over a five-game span (including a three-homer game on August 24), and then late in the year he hit seven over a six-game span. He began this season by homering in four straight games, which gave him 11 over an 11-game span dating back to that year-ending flurry. He hit five in seven games during a stretch in late May, seven in a nine-game stretch in mid-June, four in a four-game stretch as June turned into July, then another streak of homering in four straight games leading up to the All-Star break, at which point he had already racked up 37.

Davis went homerless in his first 10 games of the second half, his longest drought of the season, but he got back on track on July 30, and now has seven homers over his past 13 games, including six in August. Even with Miguel Cabrera homering in four straight games and five of his last six coming into Tuesday, Davis still holds a seven-homer edge for the league lead, 44-37. At this writing, he's hitting .299/.374/.682, ranking second in the league in slugging percentage but first in total bases (294, seven more than Cabrera) and RBI (112, one more than Cabrera). Thanks largely to an 84-point gap in on-base percentage, he came into Tuesday trailing Cabrera by 1.7 Wins Above Replacement (6.9 to 5.2), with Mike Trout (6.5) and fellow Oriole Manny Machado (5.4) between the two in the rankings.

Still, Davis' season may yet put him in the history books. His total through the Orioles' 119 games projects to 60 over a 162-game schedule, and while he lacks much margin for error, it's not as though he has to pick up the pace significantly in order to surpass Maris' longstanding AL record. Such records may not carry quite as much cachet ever since Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds surpassed that number and were subsequently connected to performance-enhancing drugs, but prior to 1998, Hack Wilson's NL record of 56 homers stood since 1930. Wilson's record gave Senior Circuit hitters their own target to aim for in lieu of summiting Mount Maris, with the 54 homers by Ralph Kiner in 1949 and the 52 by Willie Mays in 1965 and George Foster in 1977 the most serious challenges, not to mention stellar seasons in their own right.

Rays

Paul Goldschmidt

a game-tying solo homer

Jim Johnson

T.J. McFarland

Pirates

Pedro Alvarez