When they are right, as they were Saturday night at Fenway Park, the Yankees are judged in velocity off the bat, feet landed from home plate.
The closest comparison in current sports is the Warriors from long range. It is not just one person and it is not just about three points. It is Stephen Curry. It is Kevin Durant. It is Klay Thompson. It is artistry. It is distance. It is degree of difficulty.
For the Yankees it is Aaron Judge. It is Giancarlo Stanton. It is Gary Sanchez. It is majesty. It is distance. It is degrees of launch angle.
No team has ever shot the 3 quite like the Warriors or hit homers like these Yankees. Of course, in the notable-difference category, Golden State has translated long balls into titles. The Yankees are still working on that.
However, the homers at Fenway went a long way. Three of them Saturday night in a 6-2 victory over the Red Sox traveled 1,323 feet, or a quarter of a mile. But also a long way because no other road team in the Division Series round had won before the Yankees evened the best-of-five at one game apiece. The three other teams with home-field advantage held serve in their Division Series.
The Yankees’ power did travel well this year. Their 123 road homers were second most in the majors. And the four homers they hit in 70 at-bats over two games at Fenway in the Division Series are two more than every other road team these playoffs have produced combined in 268 at-bats through Saturday.
Now, the Yankees return to The Bronx, where their 144 home homers were the fifth most ever, part of the record 267 they hit in all.
“Our ballpark is set up for us as a team,” Aaron Boone said. “Our right-handed hitters are using their power the other way. But we feel like we get a really big boost at home just based on our fans and our ballpark, and I think our guys walk out there probably with a little bit of extra swagger when we take the field there.”
In fact, Red Sox manager Alex Cora had two concerns for this Division Series: 1) keeping the Yanks in the park and 2) keeping them out of their park with a chance to clinch. So far, that is fail and fail. Cora was the Astros’ bench coach last year when Houston took a 2-0 ALCS lead to Yankee Stadium. They left trailing three games to two before rallying back home to win the pennant.
The Yankees have won their last seven home playoff games — six in 2017 and this season’s wild card — by a combined 42-14. They hit 11 homers in those seven games.
“They haven’t lost a playoff game in a while there,” Cora said. “It’s a tough place to play. Last year that place was alive, the fan base.”
It is a weird juxtaposition with the home crowd — nothing quite frustrates it like when the Yankees are in all-or-nothing mode and come away with nothing. There is a harkening actually to the Rockets, who shot the most 3-pointers ever last season and then, in the biggest moment of their year, Western Conference Game 7 against the Warriors, missed 27 straight 3s at one point and finished 7-of-44, clanking their way to elimination.
When the Yankees’ power is unplugged, often it shuts them down. They were just 10-21 this season when they failed to homer, including 4-7 at home. The Red Sox went just 3-6 at Yankee Stadium in 2018, but in two of their wins they held the Yanks without a homer. This is why Cora has been so adamant about the need to restrain Yankee power.
Because when an opponent doesn’t, well, it is suddenly the Warriors at Oracle with Steph and Klay and Durant hitting 3s. The ball leaves the yard and the fans leave their seats and a sense of momentum and destiny fills Yankee Stadium. The Bleacher Creatures and Judge’s Chambers and nearly 50,000 in all enjoy the greatest hits from the organization that gave you Ruth and Gehrig, Mantle and Maris. Yankee Stadium is the home office of the long ball, and Ruth’s House is now filled with worthy heirs.
In the wild-card game, Judge had the hardest-hit ball in the Statcast Era (since 2015) at 116.1 mph for a first-inning homer. The mark lasted a few hours until Stanton clobbered one 117.4 mph for an eighth-inning homer. That Stanton drive of 443 feet was the longest of this postseason, until Judge again homered in the first Saturday at 445 feet and 113.3 mph, which was the third hardest-hit ball of this postseason. Well, at least it was for five innings, until Sanchez crushed a three-run homer at 114.8 mph in the seventh. That one went 480 feet — the second longest measured by Statcast to the 491-footer of the Cubs’ Willson Contreras in last year’s NLCS.
They return home now in this Division Series where their power plays up best to see if they can go harder and further into these playoffs.
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