Jack Leathersich is a Mets relief pitching prospect with a cool name, the cooler still and faintly NSFW nickname Leather Rocket (it’s also his Twitter handle) and a knack for missing bats. He was really into the recent 300 sequel, 300: Nipples Of Combat. He seems like a good dude, and may someday be a useful bullpen piece for the Mets.
Giancarlo Stanton smashes baseball harder than usual
As a general rule, Giancarlo Stanton is very unkind to baseballs and the people who throw them, but his spring training home run against the Mets stands out for its viciousness.
Unfortunately for him, Leathersich was asked to face Giancarlo Stanton in the Mets’ spring training game on Monday. The good news, at least for Leathersich, is that this game does not count in any standings, and that the statistics compiled in the game will vanish forever at the end of March. Here is the bad news:
What is remarkable about this, besides the fact that Stanton hit a baseball harder than a baseball has quite possibly ever been hit before, is that it came just a couple pitches after Stanton hit a Leathersich pitch even harder. That one was foul, and hit high enough that Mets color commentator Keith Hernandez lost sight of it. (Note: this could also have been a result of Mets color commentator Keith Hernandez being Keith Hernandez.) (Also of note: the delightful #SpringTraining touch of SNY misattributing the homer to Christian Yelich.)
That foul moonshot re-entered the earth’s atmosphere and bounced off a walkway like an errant drive on a public golf course, before coming to rest against a chain link fence, also like an errant drive on a public golf course.
A conversation in the booth describing it as “a long strike” had only just died down when this happened.
You’ll notice that this clears that tall black barrier on the fly and lands on an adjacent field, where it presumably buried itself a full mile in the earth, the heat of its scorching impact leaving the infield dirt behind it crystallized into priceless diamonds.
Perhaps you would enjoy simply watching Stanton swing at this pitch, over and over:
ESPN’s Matt Meyers, who made that terrifying/instructive Vine, estimated that the ball traveled 550 feet. Which does not sound reasonable or realistic, but also maybe look at the home run again. That would be a little over a tenth of a mile, or the distance of something like two city blocks on Manhattan’s grid. That would be pretty impressive if it happened in an actual major league game, but ... well, it’s still pretty impressive. Jack Leathersich is probably already over it, and that’s pretty impressive, too.
