Mark Teixeira hit a home run on Thursday. That in itself isn’t very notable, as he tends to do that quite often. There was something interesting about Teixeira’s homer though, and it wasn’t just that it broke a tie and gave the Yankees a three-run lead.
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It’s no secret that Teixeira is one of the most oft-shifted players in the majors, and for good reason. He pulls the ball an awful lot…52 percent for his career according to FanGraphs’ batted ball statistics. So when he sliced a Ken Giles fastball down the third base line and into the left field stands, I perked up a bit.
Of the 137 home runs Teixeira has hit against right-handers in his Yankees career, just five of them have gone down the left field line. With the help of Baseball Savant, I sought out each of these anomalies, but it quickly became apparent that not all of them fit our opposite-field criteria. As it turned out, two of them were actually dead-pull home runs. Teixeira, as some hitters are wont to do, opts to bat from the same-handed side against knuckleballers. On two such occasions, against R.A. Dickey and Steven Wright respectively, he went deep. While these are technically homers to left-field off of a righty, they aren’t what we’re looking for. After throwing them out, we’re left with just three pure opposite-field shots from Tex.
April 21, 2012
Distance: 381 ft.
This was an extremely memorable and wacky game in Fenway Park in which the Red Sox took a 9-0 lead after five innings and then promptly allowed the Yankees to score 15 unanswered runs. This shot off of Matt Albers was Teixeira’s second of the game and cut Boston’s lead to one.
May 10, 2014
Distance: 369 ft.
This opposite-field job in Milwaukee came off of a Kyle Lohse sinker and had just enough juice to get over the wall.
May 11, 2015
Distance: 370 ft.
Yet another road homer, this one came off an Erasmo Ramirez sinker, though there was less doubt that this one would clear the fences at Tropicana Field.
BONUS: May 3, 2015
Distance: 408 ft.
Depending on your definition of opposite-field, this would be the only other Teixeira homer that might qualify. It’s a shot over the Green Monster in left-center, this time off Joe Kelly.
That’s it. For the last six seasons, you can count on one hand the amount of times Teixeira has gone oppo, and not once has he done so for the home crowd. In that sense, Yankee fans are right to think that his go-ahead homer on Thursday looked pretty strange.
Lead photo: Anthony Grupposo / USA Today Sports