Twins hit MLB-record 268th homer of season

The 2019 Minnesota Twins are officially the most powerful team in baseball history - and there's still a month to go.

Minnesota established a new MLB record on Saturday by hitting its 268th home run of the season, breaking the previous team mark for homers in a single season that the New York Yankees set last year.

Mitch Garver hit the record-breaking dinger - his second of the evening - in the ninth inning off Detroit Tigers reliever Joe Jimenez.

Nelson Cruz hit No. 267 to tie the Yankees' mark in the previous inning.

Minnesota set the record in its 134th game of the season while tagging the Tigers for six homers. The team has 27 regular-season games remaining. By contrast, last year's Yankees needed 161 contests to break the previous mark.

"Honestly, I'm happy, because first of all, homers are pretty cool and I like hitting them," Garver told Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com.

C.J. Cron, Max Kepler, and Jorge Polanco also went deep, and Polanco's two-run shot gave the Twins an MLB-record eight players with 20-plus home runs this year.

"When these home runs start flying - and they've been flying since the very beginning - and there have been some games and weeks that are, they've been pretty special," manager Rocco Baldelli said, according to The Associated Press. "I know that I haven't seen many runs - any runs, really - that have been like this. And it just hasn't stopped."

The record-setting evening ended on a sour note for the Twins, though, as they fell to Detroit 10-7, marking the first time in franchise history that Minnesota hit five-plus home runs in a game and lost, according to ESPN Stats & Info. The Twins came into the contest sporting a 49-0 record when hitting at least five long balls.