Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Kenta Maeda threw a hanging curveball to the Baltimore Orioles’ Manny Machado on Tuesday night, and Machado knows what to do with hanging curveballs.
Machado sent the Maeda offering an estimated 453 feet, with an exit velocity of 109 mph (on just a 74 mph pitch). It almost made like the bald eagle from Monday and left Dodger Stadium:
Statcast projected that Manny Machado bomb at 453 ft, his longest of the Statcast era. That thing was destroyed.
— Andrew Simon (@AndrewSimonMLB) July 6, 2016
A nice way for Machado to celebrate his birthday, which is Wednesday. Machado turns 24. Yes, this guy that has been one of the top-10 position players in baseball (arguably top 3-5) the last two years and is hitting 450-foot rockets, is just turning 24 years old. Crazy. Even crazier, he’s just one of about a dozen under-25 superstars in the game right now.
For more awesome dingers from Tuesday night, check out these two Giancarlo Stanton hit.