Gordon’s blast breaks homer record

TORONTO — Alex Gordon of the Royals hit Major League Baseball’s record 5,694th home run of 2017 on Tuesday night, breaking a season record set in 2000 at the height of the steroid era.

Gordon’s home run off the Blue Jays’ Ryan Tepera, which cut the Royals’ deficit to 5-2, was his eighth this season and the 159th of his 11-year big-league career.

“A pretty cool thing to be a part of,” Gordon said. “I didn’t hit many this year, but I guess I made one count.”

It was the 17th of the night and came just after the Tigers’ Alex Presley tied the record when he connected at home against the A’s Daniel Gossett.

Gordon said he heard talk of the record on a clubhouse television after the Blue Jays’ Darwin Barney homered in the sixth.

“I was kind of aware that we were getting close to it,” he said. “After I walked back to the dugout. I kind of forgot about it.”

Holding the ball he hit over the right-field wall, Gordon said he didn’t plan to keep the historic memento or anything else from the game.

“I’m going to give it to Coop- erstown,” Gordon said. “I figured they’d probably have much more reason to have it than I do. I don’t really want to remember too much about this season, so I’ll probably just give it away and let them take care of it.”

There were 5,610 homers last year, an average of 2.31 per game, and this year’s average of 2.53 entering Tuesday’s action projects to 6,139. That would be up 47 percent from 4,186 in 2014.

Power subsided after the start of drug testing with penalties in 2004. The HR average dropped in 2014 to its lowest level since 1992, then rose during the second half of the 2015 season.