Baseball On The Moon

It’s a busy time for sports right now. The NBA Finals have been incredible. The Stanley Cup Finals have been nearly as good. The World Cup just started; Team USA is playing tonight. With this embarrassment of entertainment riches, regular season baseball might seem to temporarily lose a little bit of its luster. But even if you want to watch those other great spectacles, I implore you to set aside a few hours of your life this weekend for baseball. For a limited time only, they’re playing on the moon.

OK, fine, maybe not the actual moon. There are any number of logistical and physical challenges involved in that. But the first half of the six-game Las Vegas series has been the next best thing, and before the A’s play the Rockies this weekend, I’m hoping to convince you to watch it. I wouldn’t want my baseball to always look like this, but in small doses, it’s absolutely captivating.

The Athletics, currently playing in the minor league stadium of the Sacramento River Cats, have taken up an even briefer temporary residence in the stadium of their Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators. It’s a preview of sorts – in advance of their scheduled 2028 move to Sin City, the team is playing a six-game series there. And boy, does the ball carry in the desert.

Las Vegas sits only 2,000 feet above sea level. That sounds like nothing – Coors Field, the archetypical high-altitude ballpark, is famously a mile high. But the major league stadium at the second-highest altitude is Chase Field in Arizona, and it’s only 1,000 feet above sea level. That elevation helps the ball carry, but it’s only one of the many reasons that offense is high here. For one thing, it’s hot. High temperatures are forecast to exceed 100 degrees this weekend, with lows in the mid-80s providing little respite even at night. The air is as dry as it gets; Las Vegas has a lower average relative humidity than any big league city, and it’s particularly dry in the middle of summer. It’s an outdoor park, so there’s no escaping the hot, arid conditions. The PCL was the homer-happiest minor league in 2025, and Vegas was the homer-happiest park in the PCL.

I know what you’re thinking. Don’t the A’s already play in a launching pad? How different could Vegas possibly be? I hear you, but also, minor leaguers hit home runs 30% more frequently in Vegas than in Sacramento in 2025, and that ratio is even greater in 2026. Just to connect all the dots, Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park is the second-best park for offense in the majors, behind only Coors. Las Vegas Ballpark is significantly more conducive to home runs and offense.

That’s the setup. If you’re looking for evidence, consider the first three-game set the Athletics played in Vegas earlier this week. The Milwaukee Brewers were in town, and they’re not exactly a power-hitting team. Before the series started, they were 29th in baseball in home runs hit, and their pitchers had allowed the fewest homers in the majors. Their home park plays neutral – they just built their team around keeping the ball in the ballpark.

The Brewers clobbered seven home runs in their three games in Vegas. They scored 23 runs in those games. And they were the less powerful of the two squads. The A’s, for their part, launched 15 homers en route to 25 runs of their own, a franchise record for homers in a three-game series. Brewers pitchers had only allowed 49 home runs all season!

I don’t think you can reasonably use MLB’s “home run in X parks” statistic for these home runs because there’s not a lot of historical data useful for calibrating that difficult calculation, which needs to make assumptions about prevailing winds, atmospheric conditions, and the like. I’ll just tell you that Statcast measured 14 homers at 400 feet or more, and that doesn’t count this one from Gary Sánchez that hit a sign so high up the left-center field stands that Statcast couldn’t get a read:

Or this one that Jackson Chourio sent on an exploratory mission to deep space center, nearly clobbering a cameraman in the process:

It’s not just the huge bombs, though. Even players who don’t catch all of it are getting home runs for their troubles. Across the entire majors this year, there have been two home runs hit softer than 95 miles an hour and higher than a 40-degree launch angle. That’s a can of corn in most instances. The first one was a pop that Elly De La Cruz tucked just past the foul pole in a snug stadium. The second one was Jonah Heim’s 398-foot game-tying blast from Monday:

If you’re wondering how weird the stadium is, take a look at the distance projection the broadcast slapped on that ball:

What is the Statcast distance estimator supposed to do, though? Balls hit that hard at that angle should carry in the low 300-feet range. But even if you don’t completely buy the 398-foot estimate, the power alleys in Las Vegas ballpark are 380 feet, the wall is 10 feet tall, and that one was hit near the outfield notch, where the park is even a bit deeper. The ball just carries much farther in the hot, dry air. That’s how you get Alika Williams rifling a ball out of the park at sub-100 mph and a 21-degree launch angle, the kind of home run that basically doesn’t exist elsewhere. Or how you get Chourio hitting a home run on a ball that wasn’t even hard hit, resulting in great merriment:

With the Rockies in town, things could get downright flammable. Their pitching staff is one of the worst in baseball, and that’s not just a Coors effect; they’ve posted a 5.01 ERA (4.73 FIP) in road games. By sheer fluke, the three Colorado starters scheduled to go in this series are the three with the highest HR/9 rates on the team.

On the other side of the ball, the Rockies don’t offer quite as much thump; they’re 24th in homers this year despite playing in Coors, which is an above-average home run park. It’s not as good as you think for dingers – a lot of its high-scoring nature comes from the vast size of the outfield, not how easy it is to leave the yard. But still, it’s good for homers, and the Rockies don’t hit many despite that tailwind.

But if ever there were a time for an unexpected offensive explosion, it would be this weekend in Las Vegas. Parks like this don’t actually make it into the majors on a full-time basis. The offensive environment is too ridiculous. When the A’s debut full-time in Vegas, they’ll play indoors, and the league will no doubt take great care to ensure that the game plays fair, even if it’s tilted toward the offensive side. There will be careful studies of humidity and well-considered decisions about humidors and ball storage. But this is just a showcase event. They played a series in offense-wild Mexico City – offensive environments are negotiable for one-time engagements.

So if you’re into dingers, huge towering drives that clear the fence by a mile and would scrape the clouds if there were any in the sky, check out one of this weekend’s games. It’s a nice palate cleanser for the rest of this glorious sports weekend, and a fun glimpse into how different baseball might look with just a few simple adjustments. When else are you likely to see a home run this majestic?

Or this majestic?

I can’t keep posting these. There are just too many. But you get the idea. Check out a game. See some majestic home runs. Start some A’s players in fantasy. It’s going to be a high-scoring weekend.