Milwaukee Brewers

StaTuesday: Brewers' Broxton shows off power, speed

Published Jul. 3, 2018 3:19 p.m. ET

Dave Heller

There's little question that Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Keon Broxton has both power and speed.

Broxton has routinely stolen over 20 bases at every level and last season with the Brewers he hit 20 home runs to go along with 21 steals.

So it should come as little surprise that Broxton hit a pair of home runs and stole a base in the same game, June 29 against Cincinnati.

What might be somewhat shocking is just how few Milwaukee players have hit (at least) two home runs and stolen a base in the same contest.

Broxton became just the ninth Brewer to accomplish the feat. It was just the 14th time its happened overall. Ryan Braun (twice), Corey Hart (twice) and Jose Valentin (three times) are the only Milwaukee players to do it multiple times.

Of the 14 occasions, in each instance the player had just one stolen base. Only Hart (in 2011) and Valentin (in 1998) hit three homers instead of two.

PLAYER	DATE	OPP	RESULT
Don Money	7/9/1975	KC	W, 6-4
Larry Hisle	6/30/1978	SEA	W, 13-3
Robin Yount	7/1/1980	OAK	W, 5-2
Jose Valentin	6/10/1995	CLE	W, 6-1
Jose Valentin	4/3/1998	FLA	W, 7-1
Jose Valentin	7/1/1999	CHC	W, 19-12
Corey Hart	6/17/2007	MIN	L, 10-9
J.J. Hardy	7/1/2008	ARI	W, 8-6
Corey Hart	5/23/2011	WAS	W, 11-3
Ryan Braun	7/13/2012	PIT	W, 10-7
Ryan Braun	8/6/2016	ARI	W, 15-6
Domingo Santana	9/3/2017	WAS	W, 7-2
Eric Thames	6/17/2018	PHI	L, 10-9
Keon Broxton	6/29/2018	CIN	W, 8-2

The most surprising name on this list has to be Hardy, who had eight steals in his career. He had two steals -- tying his season career high -- in 2008.

Valentin's final game with two home runs and a steal was his unlikeliest as he hit just 10 home runs and stole only three bases in 1999. Hart had just seven steals in 2011 as did Money in 1975. Thames has stolen five bases thus far in 2018 (though Monday's game).

Interestingly, while there have been just 14 two-homer, one-steal games in Brewers history, two occurred this season and four have happened in the past three years.

You might think that with less emphasis on "small ball" and steals there'd be fewer such games. However, the influx of power over the year has seen an increase in players hitting two homers and stealing a base in the same game.

This decade so far there have been 88 instances -- which is 10 shy of the record for any decade (98 in the 1990s), and we still are only halfway through the 2018 season.

In the 2000s, there were 93 such games. In the 1980s, 53, which then increased nearly double the next decade.

The 1970s had 52, the 1960s 36 and the 1950s just 24. From 1908-49, there were 73.

Based on those numbers, we probably can expect a few more of these type of games from Brewers players in the future. But for now, it's quite the franchise exclusive company.

Dave Heller is the author of Ken Williams: A Slugger in Ruth's Shadow (a Larry Ritter Book Award nominee), Facing Ted Williams - Players From the Golden Age of Baseball Recall the Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived and As Good As It Got: The 1944 St. Louis Browns