Christian Moore is Tennessee baseball’s new single season home run king.
Moore hit his 25th home run of the season in the first inning of Tennessee baseball’s series opener against South Carolina. It was Moore’s fourth leadoff home run of the season and tied the game against the Gamecocks at 1-1. The second baseman broke Sonny Cortez’ record with 24 home runs during the 1998 season.
It didn’t take Moore long to add to his total. He went deep to center field over the batter’s eye again to lead off the third inning.
Tennessee’s junior second baseman is also the Vols’ career home run leader with 53 homers over the course of his three-year career. Moore hit 10 home runs his freshman season, 17 home runs in his sophomore season and is now at 26 home runs in his junior season.
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Perhaps the most impressive part of Moore’s monster junior season is that he’s done the bulk of his damage in SEC play. He’s hit 19 home runs in SEC games and entered Thursday night’s game hitting .413 with 38 RBIs during conference play.
Moore is in the midst of a career home run record race with fellow junior Blake Burke over the course of the season. But Moore has taken control of the race in recent weeks and now has eight more career home runs than Burke (45). Luc Lipcius held the previous record with 41 career home runs.
With both the single season and career home run record, Moore has undoubtedly proven to be the best home run hitter in Tennessee baseball history. Tennessee has two games left in the regular season and a guaranteed four postseason games remaining for Moore to add to his total and potentially make it a number that will be extremely hard to catch.
