CHICAGO — Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Josh Rojas, who had yet to record a home run this season, hit three of them Friday afternoon in a 10-6 win over the Chicago Cubs, becoming the 13th player in team history to accomplish the feat.
“This was a pretty good feeling, especially coming into the game with zero and leaving with three,” Rojas said. “It’s a pretty awesome feeling.”
It was the first three-homer game of Rojas’ career. He is the fourth player to go deep three times in a game this season, joining Boston‘s Trevor Story, the New York Yankees‘ Anthony Rizzo and Toronto‘s Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
“I went out during batting practice and I knew it was blowing out pretty hard,” Rojas said. “I knew it would be a good day to put the ball in the air.”
Rojas, 27, homered off Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks in the third and fifth innings, then hit one off reliever Mychal Givens in the seventh. He is the second player in Diamondbacks history to tally his first three home runs of a season in the same game, joining Erubiel Durazo in 2002.
Rojas admitted he tried to hit a home run in his first at-bat but popped out; then, after hitting three home runs in his next three plate appearances, he once again attempted to hit one out and instead was called out on strikes.
“First at-bat I was trying to hit a homer,” Rojas said with a smile. “It didn’t work out … I was definitely trying to hit a fourth home run, especially with a good lead.”
Said Arizona manager Torey Lovullo: “When you try to generate, when you try to hit a home run — go back as far as little league — it never happens.”
The Diamondbacks’ seven home runs — the last of which came off the bat of Christian Walker, who leads the National League with 10 — marked the most a team has hit in a game this season.
Arizona left fielder David Peralta homered twice, while Chicago’s Christopher Morel and Ildemaro Vargas went back-to-back in the seventh. By the final out, the Diamondbacks and Cubs had combined to hit 11 home runs, tying the mark for most in a game at Wrigley Field. It was the fifth game in Wrigley’s history to feature 11 combined home runs, and the first since 2006.
“These days [have] happened here, in this stadium, for a long, long time,” Lovullo said. “No lead is safe.”
ESPN Stats & Information contributed to this report.
Source: www.espn.com