He got off to a good start in that regard in his first plate appearance of 2022, jumping on an elevated 98.6 mph Gerrit Cole fastball and driving it out to right-field for a two-run homer. Red Sox ambush Cole in the first - 1:29 p.m.Įveryone - EVERYONE - in spring training thought that Rafael Devers looked like a player on the verge of jumping from stardom to superstardom in 2022. It is an almost unrecognizable state of affairs for the game now as compared to previous baseball generations.

Pitchers like Cole and Eovaldi find themselves, at times, relying on the command of their four-seam fastballs as a means of setting up their wipeout secondary pitches rather than as a direct means of overpowering their opponents. It is an era where everyone throws hard, and where those who cannot hit velocity are getting quickly weeded out of the game. Hitters have largely evolved with pitchers. Aaron Judge became the first batter of the game to swing-and-miss at a four-seam fastball when he could not catch up to a 98 mph fastball from Eovaldi in the bottom of the third inning. According to Stanton’s liner would not have been a homer in any of the other 29 ballparks.īoth starters have settled into better rhythms, spotting their fastballs with improved command and allowing their high-90s stuff (Cole is averaging about 98 mph on four-seamers, while Eovaldi is sitting around 99 mph) to set up a diverse array of secondary pitches.Īmazingly, in a game where both starters are flirting with triple-digits velocity (Eovaldi has reached 100 mph already), the first 31 four-seam fastballs from the two pitchers did not yield a single swing-and-miss. Save, perhaps, for a seed hit straight down the line to the Pesky Pole in Boston, it would be virtually impossible to hit a homer with a lower launch angle.īut Stanton hit the ball so hard, and Yankee Stadium proves so accommodating to balls drilled to right-center, that he managed to leave the yard and tie the game. To put that homer into context: In 2021, there were just two homers on balls with a launch angle of 15 degrees (one by Vlad Guerrero Jr., the other by Manny Machado).

He hit it so hard (116 mph) that, despite the fact that it had just a 15-degree launch angle, it snuck just over the right-field fence in Yankee Stadium for a game-tying solo homer. He has not been able to do so on Opening Day of 2022.Ī 1-1 Eovaldi slider to Giancarlo Stanton caught far too much of the plate, and the ridiculously strong Yankee slugger sent a low-flying hypersonic rocket to right. Nate Eovaldi’s All-Star season in 2021 rested in no small part on his ability to keep the ball in the park. A unicorn home run by Stanton - 2:25 p.m.

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