After failing to do so during the Detroit Tigers’ last stay at home, the Venezuelan first baseman Miguel Cabrera will move the chase of his 500th home run in the Major Leagues (MLB) to Toronto, Canada, where he will seek to become the first to achieve the feat outside the territory of the United States.
Detroit visits the Toronto Blue Jays over the weekend for a three-game series at the Rogers Center. In his career, Cabrera has hit 13 homers in 285 at-bats against the Canadian team’s pitchers, including seven at the Rogers Center, the last in the 2017 season.
Yet the Toronto franchise, which debuted in 1977, has never allowed a hitter’s 500 home run, either at home or on the road. The same happened with the Montreal Expos (1969-2004) while they were in Canadian territory.
Already converted into Washington Nationals (since 2005), they were victims of the Dominican’s 500 home run Albert pujols, on April 22, 2014 in the Nationals Park of the US capital.
The Blue Jays and Expos have been MLB’s only foreign franchises.
Cabrera hit his 499th homer last Wednesday, August 11 against the right Matt harvey in the fifth inning of a game against the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park At Camden Yard.
Since then, the slugger has hit 23-4, unable to get the ball out of the park. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the most at-bats between home runs 499 and 500 were: Jimmie Foxx (61), Harmon Killebrew (43), Mickey Mantle and Alex Rodriguez (28).
In Thursday’s game against the Los Angeles Angels, Cabrera was 2-for-5 with a double and four RBIs. He is now hitting .252 with 12 homers and 55 RBIs in his 19th MLB season (14 at Detroit).
The double Most Valuable Player of the American League and winner of the last MLB Triple Crown of batting tries to become the player number 28, seventh Latin American and the first Venezuelan with 500 home runs.
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