Marcell Ozuna of the Atlanta Braves is tied with Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers for the National League lead in home runs; they enter tonight’s action with 35 homers apiece. But Ozuna is on a streak he would like to break. The last 11 of his home runs have been solo shots. While that is quite a string of homers with no one on base, he has a long way to go to threaten either the major league mark or the Braves franchise record for consecutive solo homers.

Marwin González of the Houston Astros holds the record for consecutive solo home runs with 25. Amazingly, they were the first 25 home runs of his career, and he stretched his streak over parts of five seasons. He hit two home runs in his rookie season in 2012, four in 2013, six in 2014, 12 in 2015, and one more solo shot at the beginning of the 2016 season before finally hitting a two-run homer on May 6, 2016.

Felipe Alou holds the Braves franchise record for consecutive solo home runs with 17, and they were his first 17 homers of the 1966 season. Alou’s final home run of the 1965 season was a pinch-hit, two-run shot off Jack Fisher of the New York Mets.

Alou’s stretch of solo home runs began on April 17 and ran until July 2. During his streak he had four games in which he hit two home runs. His eighth and ninth home runs on May 12 were the first two homers ever hit in the brand-new Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Home run number 11 was a walk-off shot in the eleventh inning against the Cardinals on June 4.

Alou finally hit a home run with a man on base on July 2. After Gene Oliver got a one-out, pinch single in the top of the tenth inning in a 1-1 game against the San Francisco Giants at Candlestick Park, Alou hit a two-run shot off Frank Linzy. Clay Carroll held off the Giants in the bottom of the inning to preserve the win for the Braves.

Alou hit 11 of his solo home runs at home and six on the road. The Mets were his favorite target; he hit six of the 17 solo homers against them. Alou victimized 15 different pitchers during the streak; he hit two off both Vern Law of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Larry Bearnarth of the Mets.

Alou seemed a better candidate to run off a string of solo home runs than either Ozuna or González. The streak spanned 79 games, and Alou batted leadoff in 54 of those. Eleven of the home runs came when he was leading off an inning, including two in which he was the Braves’ first batter of the game.

Alou had a very good season in 1966, the first year the Braves were in Atlanta, and he quickly became a fan favorite. For the season, he hit 31 homers, led the NL in hits with 218 and runs scored with 122. His .327 batting average was second only to his little brother Matty, who hit .342 for the Pirates. Alou played in 154 games and was the leadoff hitter in 127 of them. He led off an inning with a home run 17 times, including five times when he led off the game with a homer.

I hope Marcell Ozuna hits a lot more home runs for the Braves this season, but it would suit me just fine if he doesn’t match Felipe Alou’s stretch of 17 straight solo homers.

(All game details are from Retrosheet.org; all statistics are from Baseball-Reference.com.)