Carter Jensen Home Runs Chase a Royals Record
The Royals’ rookie catcher hit three home runs in two days this week. He got there through a July when he batted .187.
September is the hard month for a catcher. A season of squatting takes the legs first and the swing second. So nobody expects a rookie catching his first full season to be the loudest bat in the lineup in the last month of the season.
Carter Jensen hit three home runs in two days this week. The Kansas City Royals’ rookie catcher went 3-for-4 against the Miami Marlins on Thursday, September 3. He hit a double, a triple, and a 440-foot home run to right-center, finishing a single shy of the cycle.
Those hits drove in three runs, and he came around to score three times himself. His two-run shot in the fifth put Kansas City ahead 4-3, and the Royals won 7-3 to avoid a sweep.
He is a Kansas City kid who spent July not hitting
Jensen grew up in Kansas City and played at Park Hill High School, about 22 miles from Kauffman Stadium. He watched the club that would later draft him in the third round in 2021. This season he has caught 88 games and started 80 of them.
July nearly took that away from him. He hit .187 that month and struck out in nearly four of every ten trips to the plate.
But he kept catching. That is the half of the month that no box score shows. A batting slump does not excuse a catcher from his defensive mission.
So Jensen worked through the hottest weeks of a Kansas City summer with his swing missing. Still, he blocked; and worked well with the pitching staff. The bat is the loud part of the job, and his rigorous practice restored its resonance.
Two nights in September
Wednesday came first. It was one year to the day since his major-league debut in his hometown ballpark. He punctuated his anniversary with two home runs.
The first led off the Royals’ half of the first inning at 414 feet. The second, his 21st of the season, came in the fourth. Both were solo shots, but Miami still won the game 9-6.
Then Thursday he came back and nearly hit for the cycle.
| Date | What he did | RBI | Runs | Season HR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wed, Sept 2 | 2 HR, both solo | 2 | 2 | 21 |
| Thu, Sept 3 | HR, 3B, 2B (3-for-4) | 3 | 3 | 22 |
Jac Caglianone had a month of his own to measure it against. The Royals outfielder was named the American League’s Player of the Month for August. “Super fun to see him do what he’s been doing the past couple of days,” Caglianone said. “I feel like every September, he’s just built for it.”
Caglianone has some evidence for that. Jensen hit .300 as a September call-up a year ago.
Twenty-two home runs puts him in company with Bo Jackson
That 440-foot swing was Jensen’s 22nd of the year. MLB.com’s game story put the number in context: it is the second-most any Royals rookie has ever hit.
It ties him with Carlos Beltrán in 1999 and with Bo Jackson in 1987. Jackson is the one your grandfather will tell you about, the Royals outfielder who spent his falls in the NFL.
Only Bob Hamelin has more. He hit 24 in 1994. So Jensen needs three more to pass him. Carter Jensen has the last few weeks of the season left to find them.
The record doesn’t happen if Jensen isn’t in the lineup, and a rookie catcher hitting .187 in July is not guaranteed to play. He stayed there because the rest of his game never went cold.
Your bat will leave you at some point this season. It leaves everybody. But the innings you catch while you wait are the ones that keep your name on the card. And the card is where every good September starts.
Jensen also set the single-season record for leadoff home runs as a catcher back on August 27. That is its own kind of strange for a position that almost never bats first.
Try this at your next practice
- The two-column notebook. Draw a line down a page. On the left, your at-bats. On the right, your innings: blocks you made, runners you held, pitches you called that worked. On a cold week, work the right column. It is the one that keeps you in the lineup while the left one is empty.
- The blocking ladder. Twenty balls in the dirt to your glove side, twenty to your arm side, twenty straight at you. Run it every practice, hitting or not hitting. Jensen’s July did not get him a day off from this, and yours should not either.
- Silent receiving. Twenty-five borderline pitches at the bottom of the zone, receiving quiet, on a day when you take no batting practice at all. Receiving is a skill you can work on your worst hitting week, which is exactly when it matters most.
Sources: Carter Jensen has 3 extra-base hits in Royals’ win (MLB.com) · Jensen finishes a single shy of the cycle to help Royals win 7-3 (AP via KCTV5) · Royals 7, Marlins 3 — box score and scoring plays (ESPN) · Marlins 9, Royals 6, September 2 — scoring plays (ESPN).