Jayson Werth, Phillies Pitching, and Multi-Homer Games

Jayson Werth became the 11th player with two multi-homer games against the Phillies in the same series (Bonds did it twice, so it's now happened 12 times):

The data starts in 1914, though there weren't many multi-homer games before the live ball era of the 1920s. Several players had two multi-homer games in a series against the Phils in the hitting-happy '20s and '30s, including Ott and Bottomley within three weeks of each other in 1929. However after 1937 it wasn't done again for 25 years until the Mets' Frank Thomas in 1962, and then 25 more until Eric Davis in 1987. It's not that multi-HR games were so rare in those intervening 50+ games from the '30s to the '80s (see graph below), but mostly by chance it became rare for any one player to have two such games against the Phils in the same series.

In terms of all multi-homer games against the Phillies, whether within the same series or not, for Werth this actually makes a total of three vs. the Phils. Something I had forgotten (if I ever knew it) is that he hit two against them in his rookie season with the Dodgers, on August 6, 2004.

Though that total of three still pales in comparison to the players with the most multi-hit games against the Phils, led by Barry Bonds and Mel Ott:

With three by the Nationals in this series alone, that makes a total of 14 multi-homer games allowed by Phillies pitching this year. That's three short of the most ever allowed by the Phils in a season -- opposing hitters had 17 multi-homer games against the 2004 staff that featured Eric Milton (43 HR allowed) and Brett Myers (31). Milton's total led the NL that year (by a lot), and was one behind the MLB lead held by Seattle's (and Souderton's) Jamie Moyer with 44.

There's still some time, of course, and with the quality of the current staff, that record is far from safe.