Poll results: Steven Souza to challenge county homer record

The Seattle Mariners begin their three-game road series against the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night, and that means a date with Everett native and Cascade High School graduate Steven Souza.

Souza is in his third full season in the majors and it’s been by far his best, as through Thursday he had hit 25 home runs. Therefore, this week’s poll asked readers to predict how many homers Souza would finish with this season.

Here’s what the readers had to say:

POLL: How many homers will @RaysBaseball RF and @CascadeBruins alum Steven Souza finish with? Full context here: https://t.co/4MLYazUxdZ

— Nick Patterson (@NickHPatterson) August 14, 2017

Add those together and 30-34 received the most votes at 49 percent. 25-29 was second at 23 percent, 35-39 received 18 percent, and 40-plus was at 10 percent. So nearly half the responders expect Souza to remain largely on the pace he’s currently on.

Souza didn’t hit any homers between Monday and Thursday to move his number since the poll was originally posted.

One interesting thing that’s come from doing this poll is the Herald’s sports staff began thinking about where Souza would rank in the history of Snohomish County natives. In researching the subject, here’s what we came up with as the 10 best major-league homer seasons from Snohomish County natives prior to this season:

1) 33, Grady Sizemore (Cascade H.S.) 2008

2) (tie) 32, Earl Averill (Snohomish H.S.) 1931, Averill 1932

4) 31, Averill 1934

5) (tie) 28, Sizemore 2006, Averill 1936

7) (tie) 24, Earl Torgeson (Snohomish H.S.) 1951, Sizemore 2007

9) 23, Torgeson 1950

10) 22, Sizemore 2005

So as it stands now Souza would slot in at No. 7, and at his current pace he could end up breaking the county record.

We feel pretty good about having located the Snohomish County natives who have reached double-digit homers in the majors (Earl Averill Jr., Travis Snider and Brent Lillibridge are the others), but we’re not 100-percent certain. If you happen to know of someone we’ve missed, please let us know either in the comments section or my sending an e-mail to npatterson@heraldnet.com.