Kris Bryant has the ability to hit a baseball a long way and he did just that on Sunday afternoon.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Cubs’ rookie turned on a 95 mph fastball from Rubby De La Rosa and launched it further than any Major League Baseball home run this season, according to MLB’s Statcast.
It took a matter of seconds for the ball to leave the yard and bang off of the scoreboard in left field. Statcast projected the distance of the prodigious blast at 495 ft with an exit velocity of 111.5 mph, both of which are pretty ridiculous.
From his vantage point in the dugout, Cubs manager Joe Maddon thought the home run traveled further than the estimate assigned to it.
“I thought when he hit it that might be the longest home run all year, and there it was. I think 495 (feet) is a misconception, Maddon said via MLB.com. It has to be farther than that. That thing was absolutely annihilated.”
Cubs fans had to wait a few days at the start of the season to see the team’s prized prospect in the majors, but he has been advertised and well worth the wait. Bryant now has 23 home runs and leads the club with 86 RBIs.
