Marcus Semien Belts 250th Career Home Run

Former Cal standout Marcus Semien is not having his best season, but he has found his power stroke recently, helping him reach a significant milestone.

Semien, a second baseman and shortstop throughout his major league career, hit his 12th home run of the season on Sunday to help his Texas Rangers beat the Houston Astros 5-1. It was his third home run in the past five games, but more significantly it was the 250th home run of his career.

Reaching 250 homers is a worthwhile milestone, especially for a middle infielder.  Although Semien now ranks only 256th alltime in career homers overall, he is 22nd about active players.  More significantly, Semien’s 250 homers rank 18th in major-league history among middle infielders, and he ranks second among active middle infielders, behind only Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor. (Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts is also ahead of Semien but he has played a lot of major-league games in the outfield.)

It’s worth noting that Semien has more career homers than Pete Alonso and Juan Soto and just seven fewer than Shohei Ohtani heading into the All-Star break.

Semien is still not on another MVP path but he’s on the rise.  His average is up to .239 and his OPS has risen to .695, and while those are still below Semien’s standards, they are a significant improvement over the .173 batting average and .485 OPS he was lugging around back on May 28.

His numbers still pale compared to what he did in 2019, 2021 and 2023, finishing third in MVP voting each of those seasons. And he won’t be at the All-Star Game after being a participant in that game in three of the past four seasons.

Semien is long way from matching the 45 home runs he hit for Toronto in 2021, but he seems to be getting comfortable at the plate, so 25 homers and 90 RBIs for the season are not out of the question, which is not bad for a second baseman.

He has already had a better major-league career than many expected when he came out of Cal.  Semien was a sixth-round pick in the 2011 MLB draft and was the 201st overall selection. He hit just five home runs and batted .275 in 61 games in his final season with the Golden Bears in 2011.

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