The New York Yankees emerged from a four-day slumber (literally) to walk off the Texas Rangers in a sleepy Game 1 of a Mother’s Day doubleheader, taking the opener 2-1 on a Gleyber Torres oppo shot.
Was Torres’ confident dinger the longest home run you’ll ever see? No. There’ve been longer, but Torres got good wood on an outside spinner and sailed around the bases, doing something no Ranger had done since Kole Calhoun’s solo shot in the seventh.
Reminder, before we get going here, that both teams in a baseball game are given ample opportunities to hit home runs in the ballpark they’re playing in. Got it? Good.
This Torres crank wasn’t even a short-porch special, though. The mathematicians behind such things determined that it would’ve left the yard in 26 of the 30 MLB ballparks. That’s a lot of ballparks!
Clearly ignorant of that readily-available information, Rangers manager Chris Woodward hopped on the mic in the postgame scrum and told reporters otherwise.
Woodward, who apparently peeled himself off Spiraling Red Sox Twitter before the interview, called Yankee Stadium a “Little League ballpark,” absolving all blame from his pitcher, who, again, would’ve gotten donged in 26 of baseball’s beautiful stadiums.
Rangers manager Chris Woodward claims Yankees play in a Little League stadium, but his team doesn’t?
You’d expect that literal smelly trash from Boston trolls like Jared Carrabis or any of the zombies who lick his boots, but an honest-to-goodness MLB manager? Let alone an MLB manager who has a managerial record of 168-238 and sits only ahead of the listless A’s in the AL West, constantly teetering on the edge of a well-earned firing?
Luckily for the Yankees, Woodward’s comment ignited a near-immediate response in Game 2. Did he forget there was a second game?
Giancarlo Stanton started the scoring in that contest with a two-run shot that flew 461 feet into the bullpen, which … would’ve been across the street and through a window at most Little League parks. @Yankees, fire up the tweet!
As color analyst Cameron Maybin said on the YES Network broadcast, too, “It’s a Little League ballpark.”
And some kids are stronger than others.
UPDATE: The Rangers hit a tiny home run in the sixth inning Sunday night, and the Yankees broadcast continued dragging them.
Good.
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