Tag: home runs

Red Sox’ Alex Verdugo on Crushing First Home Run of Season With New Team: ‘To Finally Be Able to Help Out and Get a Couple Runs for Us, It’s Huge’

Going into Wednesday night, Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo was without a home run or RBI through his first nine games and 30 plate appearances with his new team.

That all changed against Rays left-hander Ryan Yarbrough in the fourth inning of an eventual 5-0 win for Boston at Tropicana Field to close out a seven-game road trip.

After striking out on eight pitches in his first at-bat against the Rays starter, Verdugo come to the plate for a second time with two outs and a runner on first following a Michael Chavis single.

On the second pitch he saw in his second at-bat against Yarbrough, which was nearly identical to the first’s location, the 24-year-old unloaded on an 0-1, 71 mph curveball at the bottom of the zone and deposited it 352 feet to the right field seats for his first home run of 2020 and his first in a Red Sox uniform. It also gave his side an early two-run lead.

“It felt amazing, man,” Verdugo said of his homer during his postgame media availability. “It’s pretty obvious a lot of us are going through it right now trying to find our swings. There’s a lot of new things in baseball, not being able to see the videos until after the games and all that. Usually, the in-game adjustments have been hard. It felt really good to finally be able to stay on one, to stay through it and get one out.”

Per Statcast, Verdugo’s two-run blast had an Expected Batting Average (xBA) of .220, so it wasn’t exactly barreled, per se, but it was still encouraging to see him make relatively hard contact nonetheless. His manager, Ron Roenicke felt that way as well.

“He was pretty happy, I’ll tell you that, when he came to the dugout,” said the Sox skipper. “It was huge. At the time, it was huge. I thought Yarbrough was throwing the ball fantastic and the next thing you know, we’ve got two runs on the board. The players know it, they feel what’s going on. To get that lead, I’m sure Dugie felt pretty good about that.”

Indeed, Verdugo did feel pretty good about getting his first one out of here since coming over from the Dodgers in February. More importantly, he was happy it contributed to a victory.

“I think the biggest thing for me was just to help the team out,” Verdugo said. “It was a tie game, so just to get up there and give us a 2-0 lead, give the pitcher and everybody a little breath. Like, ‘Hey, alright, we’ve got some room to work.’ That was my biggest part. I came here to contribute. I’ve played the game hard and I want to contribute in everything that I do. To finally be able to help out and get a couple runs for us, it’s huge.”

Following Wednesday’s impressive performance, Verdugo is showing why he should be starting more against left-handed starters, especially when the likes of Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr. are mired in slumps.

While with Los Angeles for parts of the previous three seasons, the left-handed hitting Arizona native slashed .306/.333/.452 slash line in 133 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers, earning the reputation of being a “reverse splits” guy.

Thus far with the Red Sox, Verdugo now owns an OPS of 1.009 through his first 16 plate appearances against southpaws this year, again proving that he should be playing more. Even still, the outfielder understands that finding playing time for everyone is no easy task.

“I always mess around with that,” Verdugo said with a smile. “When I’m not in there against a lefty, I’m like, ‘Hey, Ron, just so you know, man, I can hit ‘em.’ I think he knows it, too. I think he also knows when players are pressing. He’s doing his job, he’s doing what he has to do. I take a lot of pride against lefties.”

Also, it’s probably about time Verdugo moves up in the lineup, too. Just a thought.

 

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On This Day in Red Sox History: Babe Ruth Hits First Career Home Run Against Future Team

On this day in 1915, a 20-year-old Babe Ruth embarked on his journey to becoming one of the most notorious home run hitters of all time in Upper Manhattan, New York City.

Then a member of the Boston Red Sox, Ruth was slated to make his third pitching start and fourth overall appearances of the 1915 campaign against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds. The Sox were 7-6 on the morning of that Thursday afternoon contest, while the Yankees had gotten off to a 10-5 start.

At that point in time, Ruth had yet to become a full-time player. In other words, all of his at-bats with Boston to that point had either come as a pitcher or pinch-hitter. In hindsight, that probably wasn’t the wisest decision.

Anyway, Ruth got the starting nod from manager Bill Carrigan and opposed Yankees right-hander Jack Warhop on that faithful Thursday in front of 5,000 or so fans at the Polo Grounds.

Having tossed two scoreless innings to start things out, Ruth came to the plate for his first at-bat of the day against Warhop, who had also worked the first two innings without giving up a run, in the top half of the third.

Per The Boston Globe, “Ruth, who impressed the onlookers as being a hitter of the first rank, swatted a low ball into the upper tier of the right-field grandstand and trotted about the bases to slow music.”

The Babe’s first career home run gave his side an early one-run advantage in what would eventually turn out to be a 4-3 loss in 13 innings.

Ruth finished the day 3-for-5 at the plate with that one homer. Pitching wise, the left-hander’s final line looked like this:

12.1 IP, 10 H, 4 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 HBP, 3 Ks. In total, Ruth faced 50 hitters and presumably finished the two-hour-and-35-minute contest with a very high pitch count.

The Sultan of Swat, The Colossus of Clout, the King of Crash. Whatever you want to call him, Ruth would go on to mash 713 more home runs over the course of an illustrious 22-year career with the Red Sox, Yankees, and Boston Braves.

Exactly three years after hitting his first big league home run, Ruth made his first career start at first base and batted out of the six-hole in another game against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds, marking the first time he had appeared in a game at a position outside of pitcher or pinch-hitter.

 

That Time Manny Ramirez Hit Nearly 1,000 Feet of Home Runs in One Night at Fenway Park

Where were you on the evening of June 23rd, 2001? Personally, I was less than two months away from turning three years old, so I was probably sleeping or doing something else a toddler would do.

I ask because on that date, the Red Sox were hosting the Blue Jays at Fenway Park, and their starting lineup featured Jose Offerman, Chris Stynes, Trot Nixon, Manny Ramirez, Dante Bichette, Shea Hillenbrand, Mike Lansing, Doug Mirabelli, and Darren Lewis. A real throwback.

Despite ultimately falling to Toronto by a final score of 9-6 on that Saturday night, two of those six Boston runs came on two individual swings of the bat from Manny Ramirez.

In the bottom half of the first inning, the 29-year-old slugger crushed a 1-1 offspeed pitch from Blue Jays starter Chris Michalak deep to left-center field that wound up deflecting off a Fleet Bank sign. Statcast did not exist at this time, but per the NESN broadcast, the ball traveled an estimated 463 feet.

Fast forward to the third, and Ramirez was at it again against Michalak, this time absolutely demolishing a 1-0 pitch from the left-hander and sending it to the top of the leftmost light tower way above the Green Monster.

“How in the world are they going to measure how far this thing has gone?” said NESN’s Jerry Remy.

Had that light tower not been there, that ball was surely headed for the Mass Pike. But, since there was no real official landing spot with the deflection and all, the mammoth shot was estimated to have traveled 501 feet, one foot short of Ted Williams’ 1946 mark (the red seat).

85. Manny Ramirez's 501 foot Home Run | Find this plaque at … | Flickr

All in all, those two big flies traveled an estimated total distance of about 964 feet. Not too shabby in what was the fourth of five multi-homer contests for Ramirez in his inaugural season with the Red Sox 19 years ago.

In that first year with Boston, Ramirez, who signed an eight-year, $160 million deal as a free agent the previous December, would go on to finish ninth in American League MVP voting while winning his fourth Silver Slugger award after slashing .306/.405/.609 with 41 home runs and 125 RBI over 142 games played.

Christian Vazquez Crushes Red Sox’ 239th Home Run of 2019 to Set New Single-Season Franchise Record

Christian Vazquez made quite a bit of history on Wednesday night, setting the Red Sox’ record for home runs in a single season with his 23rd big fly of the year.

That 427-foot, two-run shot coming off of Rangers left-hander Kolby Allard on Wednesday marked the 239th homer hit by the Red Sox in 2019, surpassing the club’s previous record of 238 total home runs, which was set back in 2003.

Subsequently, Vazquez was removed from this contest in the fourth due to tightness in his left hamstring, which is believed to have popped up when the backstop went from first to third on a Mitch Moreland single in the top half of the second.

Per The Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham, taking Vazquez out for Sandy Leon was more precautionary than anything, and he was not going to catch on Thursday regardless.

As it also turns out, Chris Owings added on to the Red Sox history as well on Wednesday, as his fourth inning strikeout at the hands of Rangers right-hander Luke Farrell marked Boston’s 1,338th punchout of the year to surpass the 2014 record of 1,337 K’s.

Luke is the son of former Sox manager John Farrell.