The Blue Jays’ George Springer moved into second place all time with 55 home runs

There’s nothing like thrilling your team by coming off the lead, and Toronto Blue Jays player George Springer is all too familiar with that feeling.

Springer opened the bottom of the first inning of Sunday’s game against the Oakland Athletics with a solo blast to move into second place on MLB’s all-time leaderboard for home runs with the 55th hit of that variety. Springer Cut a tie with Alfonso Soriano, now trailing only Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, who accomplished the feat 81 times in his illustrious career. Springer also passed Craig Biggio — father of fellow Blue Jays Cavan Biggio — earlier this season.

The Toronto offense never looked back from there, running 12-1 to seal the win over Oakland. Springer finished the game 2-for-3 with a walk and contributed two RBI.

The 33-year-old has established himself as one of the most effective hitters in MLB history, and has spent 856 of his 1,082 games at the top of the lineup card. In those 856 contests, he had an impressive 0.299/.371/.561 slash in plate appearances as his team’s leading batter of the game.

Overall, Springer hasn’t been as productive as usual yet in 2023. Going into Sunday’s game, he’s batting .261 for .724 OPS, with the latter number being a career low. His offensive stats slumped due to a poor start to the season, during which he struggled with illness. In March and April, he hit just . 225 with a . 599 OPS.

The All-Star and 2017 World Series MVP was in the third season of a six-year, $150 million contract he signed in 2021 after spending the first seven years of his career with the Houston Astros.