According to the Associated Press, Giancarlo Stanton of the New York Yankees blasted the hardest-hit ball in the majors this season on Wednesday against the Houston Astros, hitting a bullet of a home run at 119.9 mph.
Giancarlo Stanton smashed a 1-2 curveball from Astros rookie starting pitcher Spencer Arrighetti into the second deck in left field to score the home run in the third inning. The ball traveled 447 feet and was fairly thrown. In the Yankees’ 10-3 victory over the Astros, Stanton launched a 118.8 mph home run off of Justin Verlander, his second home run in as many nights.
Stanton now has six 119+ mph home runs since statcast was instituted in 2015, according to Sarah Langs of MLB.com.
Stanton’s home run extended the Yankees’ lead to 5-1 at the time, and came two batters after Aaron Judge hit a home run to make it 4-1.
While Stanton is not playing to his peak performance from earlier in his career, he is still pretty productive offensively this season, especially in comparison to 2023 when he struggled mightily.
The Yankees have a 33-4 record when Stanton and Aaron Judge hit home runs in the same game, including the postseason, according to the Associated Press. New Yankees slugger, Juan Soto, got the scoring started in the first inning with a 440-foot shot to left-center. This was the first time that the trio of sluggers hit home runs in the same game.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone previously had a clever comment when Aaron Judge and Juan Soto hit home runs in the same game in late April, saying that it was like “hot chocolate on a cold say”, but he had no sly comment this time around.
“I don’t have anything clever tonight. It was such a nice night out,” Aaron Boone said, via Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News. “I didn’t need the hot cocoa tonight. It was perfect weather out. But that certainly puts a smile on your face when those three guys do that.”
Judge and Stanton have been paired up since 2018, but Soto was brought in to supplement and give a boost to a Yankees lineup that struggled in 2023. He has been everything that the team and fans have hoped for and more. Soto commented on the trio’s performance and incidated that they believe this will be more of a common occurrence.
“I know it’s not gonna be easy to do that every night, but we’re really capable of doing that and more,” Juan Soto said, via David Adler of MLB.com. “Judge has been locked in the last couple of days. I’m really excited for that — I can’t wait to see him going crazy. It’s gonna be great. And G, how hard he hits the ball, it’s just amazing. You don’t see guys hitting balls 120 every day.”
Stanton has also played well overall, but Soto has been outstanding from the beginning. According to MLB.com, Judge had a little slump to start the season, but since the Detroit Tigers series last weekend, he has been more like himself. As a result, his season OPS is now.844.
With the victory, the Yankees improved to 25-13 overall. On Thursday, they will attempt to go to 26-13 by winning the series finale against the Astros. Additionally, New York may push the bitter rival Astros to an extremely difficult 12-to-25 overall hole.
