J.J. Hardy Is a Wizard

It’s not easy to hit a home run to right field in Fenway Park. It’s actually quite difficult to hit a home run to right field in Fenway Park, even as home runs go. There’s a common misconception that Fenway yields a bunch of cheap dingers. By quantity, Fenway keeps itself reasonable. But it does claim one particular type of cheap dinger, the one where a hitter manages to wrap the ball around Pesky’s Pole. If you place the ball just right down the line, you can hit it 305 feet and take your four bases. It’s absurd when it happens, but so is the fact that we dedicate so much of our attention to the sport in the first place. Don’t tug on that absurdity thread, unless you’re prepared to question more than you’re used to.

Tuesday afternoon, I was watching the Orioles play the Red Sox, and J.J. Hardy slashed a liner to right that bounced off the top of the fence beside the pole. I thought to myself, “ehh, maybe that’s worth an article.” Shortly thereafter I left the house and didn’t think much about it. Imagine my surprise when I found out Hardy did it again, a few innings later. The batted ball itself was different, but the result was the same: Twice in one contest, the right-handed Hardy homered next to the pole. That’s a whole different level of absurd.

Hardy first made a victim of Clay Buchholz. He later made a victim of Robbie Ross. One was an opposite-field line drive, and one was an opposite-field…technically, fly ball, but it was more like a long pop-up. Here, see for yourself:

If you want, you can watch Hardy discuss his performance after the game. What he pulled off wasn’t lost on anybody. Sometimes, these little exceptional events can be subtle. There’s nothing subtle about rounding the bases after you hit a short home run. I think players trot because they believe they deserve it. Hardy might’ve been experiencing a unique blend of pride and embarrassment.

Something you should know about Hardy: He isn’t renowned for his opposite-field power. From Baseball Savant, here are his PITCHf/x era home runs, including Tuesday’s:

Before Tuesday, Hardy had exactly one opposite-field home run to his name since the start of 2010. In one sense, he has now unquestionably added to that amount. In another sense, you might give the homers an asterisk. You don’t want to get too deep into that, because a home run is a home run is a home run, but you shouldn’t take this as a sign that Hardy has upped his right-field power. He hasn’t. He just played in the right place, and put the right swing on the right pitches.

For fun, I pulled some information from the ESPN Home Run Tracker. I looked at Fenway, specifically, and I gathered all the regular-season and postseason home runs hit there since 2006. So we’re covering a little over a decade. From all the homers, I then narrowed down to what we might consider “Pesky homers.” This requires a little guesswork, and there’s a fine line between a Pesky homer and a regular homer, but in short, I looked for cheap homers to short right field. I was left with a sample of 32 homers, or about three a year. Right there, that’s a good sign that this hasn’t spiraled out of control. David Ortiz leads everyone, with five of these. Hardy is the first player to do this twice in a game. It’s actually the first time this has happened twice in a game, on record, even if by different players. It’s rare to see one of these home runs. It’s exceptionally rare to see two of these home runs on the same day. And for them both to be hit by the same player? That might be a Fenway first. It also might not be — Fenway is old — but Hardy did something weird. The more I think about it, the more unbelievable it becomes.

I mentioned the PITCHf/x era. But, hey, this is also now the Statcast era, right? I got more information from Baseball Savant, examining all the out-of-the-park homers recorded since the start of 2015. I eliminated the bugs, then I plotted the homers by launch angle and batted-ball speed. Here’s what I was left with, with Hardy’s homers highlighted:

Not that you needed more proof that these were unusual. Not unprecedented, but unusual. There’s more we can do, though! Through the magic of Statcast, let’s look at similar batted balls, but in other parks. Here’s Hardy’s first home run:

Here’s a ball hit with about the same speed, at about the same angle, and to roughly the same place:

It should be noted that, while Hardy’s first home run was cheap, it’s not like he didn’t deserve a hit. In another park, that’s probably a double, or maybe even a triple. So Hardy didn’t get four free bases — he got two, or one. It was a good hit. Now here’s the next one:

Here’s a ball hit with about the same speed, at about the same angle, and to roughly the same place:

This one — this one — was silly. Elsewhere, it’s a catchable fly ball, in the vicinity of the warning track. Hardy got to jog all the way around. I think he realized it, too. Here’s Hardy after the first home run:

Enhance:

Here’s Hardy after the second home run:

Enhance:

It’s not often you want to round the bases with a smile on your face. Let me walk that back. It’s not often you get to round the bases with a smile on your face. I think there are only a few times when you can get away with it without provoking your opponent. You can smile if it’s your first career homer. You can smile if you’re a pitcher. You can smile if maybe you just broke some kind of record. And you can smile if you realize the home run you just hit was really stupid. Hardy wasn’t showing up the Red Sox, here. He smiled because he couldn’t take his game too seriously. And, given everything that happened, who could?