Statcast of the Day: Kraken releases 493-ft. HR

DETROIT -- Yankees catcher Gary Sánchez got an 80-mph changeup up in the zone in the first inning Tuesday night, and he didn't miss it.
The All-Star slugger turned on the Matthew Boyd pitch and sent it flying deep into the left-field seats at Comerica Park. Statcast™ tracked the two-run shot at an estimated 493 feet, making it the second-longest homer in the Majors this season and the longest at Comerica Park since Statcast™ was introduced in 2015.
"When I hit that ball, I knew I hit it hard," Sanchez said through a translator after the Yankees' 13-4 rout of the Tigers. "But I had no clue it went that far -- 493 feet is very far."
Sanchez went on to hit another two-run shot in the ninth inning, raising his season homer total to 25. His ninth-inning blast went 403 feet, giving him a combined 896 feet of home runs on the night.

"I'm not surprised. We've seen it," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said of the first-inning homer. "We knew off the bat it was a home run. Again, he's been swinging the bat extremely well and he's big to our lineup."
The first-inning blast, which barely missed the bottom of the Comerica Park scoreboard, was just shy of teammate Aaron Judge's 495-foot homer on June 11.
"I think I've still got him by two feet," Judge said with a laugh. "It was impressive. Sitting back on a changeup like that and taking a swing he did, first at-bat, that's impressive."

Sanchez's homer is tied for the fourth-longest home run since 2015 behind Judge, Kris Bryant (496 feet in '15) and Giancarlo Stanton (503 feet in '16). The previous long by any catcher since 2015 was 465 feet by the Phillies' Cameron Rupp (at Coors Field last year).
As for Comerica Park history, J.D. Martinez held the previous record with a 467-foot homer in 2015. Martinez also hit the longest home run this season at Comerica at 453 feet.
Sanchez's previous career long was 450 feet on June 11.