Alfonso Soriano won the American League Player of the Week honor for smashing five homers, then went out and hit an eighth inning tie-breaking two run round tripper off of RA Dickey on a Wednesday night when Ichiro got that 4,000th hit.
Add that to your list of things that are incredible about Detroit's franchise cornerstone, the reigning American League Most Valuable Player who is flirting with a second consecutive Triple Crown Award (for leading the league in homers, batting average and runs batted in).
If a player about whom we had no other information say, a recent arrival from Cuba hit a home run of average distance in his first at-bat, we would expect him to hit about 6% more homers than an average player for the rest of the season.
Guys who are washed up just don't hit 477-foot homers.
I'm just as curious to know how many home runs Babe Ruth would have hit if he had faced the likes of "Smokey" Joe Williams and "Bullet Joe" Rogan as I am to know how many homers Mr Bonds would have hit had he never used what he called "flaxseed oil".Steroids may be unseemly, but they helped win games and championships for many years.
I first discarded all their ground balls and pop-ups, since balls on those trajectories cannot become homers no matter how hard they are hit.
In 2006 the long-forgotten Chris Shelton hit nine homers in his first 51 at-bats.
In contrast, if the player hit a 477-foot home run like Mr Rodríguez's in his first at-bat, we would expect him to hit around 50% more homers than average.
It was all too good to last.There has been growing concern about steroid use: where exactly have all those recent homers come from?
Although Sosa, with 63 homers, became the first player to hit 60 home runs in two consecutive seasons, McGwire hit 65, including the 500th of his career, and led the NL with 147 runs batted in.
McGwire's 70 homers led the league, while Sosa, his season-long rival, paced the league in runs batted in (158) and was voted the league's MVP.
