On Thursday, New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton hit the the first homer of the 2020 MLB season with a 459-foot bomb off Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer.
Well, just two days later, Stanton topped that dinger with an even bigger blast at Nationals Park. Stanton obliterated a fastball from Nats starter Erick Fedde (starting in place of Stephen Strasburg), and sent it way up the (covered) seats in left-center field.
The Fox broadcast displayed a graphic measuring the homer at 417 feet, but that seems well short (especially if we assume that the ball may have kept going for a while if the seats didn’t get in the way).
And Statcast certainly agrees. Statcast tracked the home run at 483 feet, with an exit velocity of 121.3 mph. That’s a remarkable blast, and it’s the second-hardest home run tracked by Statcast, behind only a Stanton home run in 2018 that had an exit velocity of 121.7.
This was the Statcast Exit Velo HR leaderboard before today (hint lots of Stanton and Judge)
pic.twitter.com/6GRGgC0buA — Katie Sharp (@ktsharp) July 26, 2020
Stanton only played in 18 games in 2019 due to injuries, but he certainly looks healthy and primed for a powerful season at the plate in the 2020 season. The Yankees were a loaded roster to begin with, and Stanton returning to his superstar form would make them downright terrifying.