Elevate a pitch over the heart of the plate? Unless you’re getting it up to his shoulders at 95 mph, you’re not going to like what happens:
That was a bomb. ESPN says it was 434 feet:
Cubs rookie Javier Baez now has 5 HR in his first 14 games. Monday's HR was his longest yet. pic.twitter.com/aEE1ZeQxn1
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) August 18, 2014
It’s not easy to send it out to the alleys at Citi Field, and Baez got it to the second deck out that way. Crushed it.
That was Baez’s 5th homer of the year in his 14th game. Having a little fun and projecting that over 162 games, that’s a 58-homer pace. Yes, Baez is striking out a lot so far, but he’s also hitting homers at a prolific pace. No, I don’t expect that to keep up over a full season when he’s just 21/22/23, but it’s become very easy to see why folks were saying he could hit 40 in the big leagues.
His line on the year is .233/.258/.517, which is good for a .336 wOBA and 112 wRC+. More adjustments are coming in both directions, but, so far, Baez is looking like a decent version of what we expected him to be.