MLB seeing continued surge in home runs - MLB

With a home run on Monday or Tuesday night, Cody Bellinger will enter May with 15 home runs, which would be a record. Currently, Bellinger and Christian Yelich this season have joined Albert Pujols (2006) and Álex Rodríguez (2007) as the only players to hit 14 home runs by the end of April.

Bellinger, however, isn’t the only player surging in home runs. The entire league is. According to Baseball Reference, the league is averaging 1.33 home runs per game, which would be by far a record if the season were to end today. The previous record was set in 2017 at 1.26. Before that, the record was 1.17 in 2000, believed by many to be around the apex of the “steroid era.” The homer rate per game was actually well below 1.00 as recently as 2014 (0.86).

While many factors are contributing to the surge in homers, the most noteworthy is the change in the makeup of the baseball. Separate studies concluded that the ball composition has changed in a meaningful way. In a June 2017 study published at The Ringer, Ben Lindbergh and Mitchel Lichtman concluded that baseballs used after the 2015 All-Star break were different in terms of “bounciness,” as well as lower seam height and circumference. Shortly thereafter, FiveThirtyEight’s Rob Arthur found that newer baseballs have a lower drag coefficient (air resistance). For The Athletic in June last year, Dr. Meredith Wills actually deconstructed baseballs and found that the seams on newer baseballs, compared to those from the 2014 season, are nine percent thicker.

A handful of pitchers have complained about the ball, including members of both the Astros and Dodgers during the 2017 World Series. Marcus Stroman blames the change in baseballs for causing “an epidemic” of blisters for pitchers. Other pitchers, including David Price, Brad Ziegler, Jerry Blevins, and Chris Archer also noticed something materially different about the baseballs.

March and April are typically not homer-friendly months due to lower temperatures and poorer weather. In 2015, March and April saw 592 homers across the league. There were 740 in 2016, 863 in 2017, 912 in 2018, and a whopping 1,101 this year — and we had two days to go when the stat was last updated. That sounds great if you’re a hitter; not so much if you’re a pitcher.

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SEATTLE (AP) Aaron Judge homered for the third time in two games, Anthony Volpe and Greg Allen also went deep and the New York Yankees stretched their winning streak to four with a 10-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night.

Judge hit a towering fly ball on the first pitch of the seventh inning from reliever Darren McCaughan that carried just enough to clear the fence in left-center field, even if it would not have been a homer at Yankee Stadium.

It was the 18th of the season for Judge, who hit a pair of homers in the series opener on Monday night.

While Judge hitting another homer will get the headlines, it was Volpe’s long ball that broke open the game. With two outs in the third inning, Seattle starter Logan Gilbert caught too much of the plate with a 1-2 slider and Volpe drove the pitch 413 feet for a three-run shot and a 6-0 lead. It was Volpe’s eighth homer of the season and snapped a 2-for-22 slide for the rookie.

Allen, filling in for injured center fielder Harrison Bader, hit his first of the season leading off the fourth inning. Isiah Kiner-Falefa also had a key two-run single in the first inning as the Yankees took advantage of an error to give starter Nestor Cortes a 3-0 advantage before he took the mound.

Kiner-Falefa had another two-run single in the ninth. New York has scored at least 10 runs in three straight games for the first time since Sept. 15-17, 2020.

Cortes (5-2) mostly cruised through five innings, allowing two runs and five hits with six strikeouts. Ty France and Teoscar Hernández had RBI doubles in the fifth inning. Judge nearly stole another hit from Hernández after robbing him of a homer on Monday, but his diving attempt at Hernández’s liner fell for a double.

Gilbert (3-3) lasted just four innings for the second time this season. The five earned runs allowed were a season-high and the four strikeouts matched a season-low.

SEE YA LATER

Seattle catcher Tom Murphy and manager Scott Servais were both ejected by plate umpire Brian Walsh in the sixth inning. Murphy was ejected after yelling toward first base umpire C.B. Bucknor following a check-swing that was called a strike. Servais argued the decision to eject Murphy and was quickly tossed by Walsh. It was the second ejection this season for Servais.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Yankees: Bader (hamstring) was placed on the 10-day IL after leaving Monday’s game in the third inning injuring his right hamstring running out an infield single. OF Franchy Cordero was recalled.

Mariners: McCaughan was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma to add a long reliever to the bullpen. RHP Juan Then was optioned to Tacoma. It was Seattle’s first roster move in 24 days.

UP NEXT

Yankees: RHP Clarke Schmidt (2-5, 5.58) took the loss despite allowing only one earned run over five innings in his last start against Baltimore. Schmidt has gone at least five inning in five of his last seven starts.

Mariners: RHP George Kirby (5-4, 3.43) was knocked around for seven earned runs and four home runs allowed in his last start against Pittsburgh. Both matched career highs.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports