MILWAUKEE -- Travis Shaw hit a baseball at Miller Park on Thursday where few sluggers do.
During the Brewers' 7-5 win, Shaw hit a three-run home run off Cardinals ace Carlos Martinez that rocketed off Shaw's bat at 113.8 mph and traveled a Statcast-projected 458 feet -- or, it would have sailed that far had it not clanked off the facing of the stadium's third deck. It was the hardest-hit homer by a Brewers batter this season, and "one of the best balls I've ever hit," Shaw said.
"That's the first one I've seen up there in a while," said Craig Counsell, who played for the Brewers at Miller Park before managing them. "The left-handed power guys we've had here since Prince [Fielder], I think Adam Lind probably is the only one that comes to mind. The first day Travis was here and we took BP, he saw some balls going places he hadn't seen in a while."
Shaw's third home run in as many days is the fourth-longest homer by a Brewer in the Statcast™ era (beginning in 2015) and the eighth-longest by any player in that span. Ryan Braun owns both records with his 474-foot home run off Timothy Lincecum in a loss to the Giants on May 25, 2015.
Before Thursday, 27 of the Brewers' 29 home runs were measured by Statcast™, and the longest was from another newcomer, Eric Thames, who hit one 426 feet on Saturday in Cincinnati.
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Thames was one of the runners on base when Shaw connected, giving him a home run in three straight games.
"I wish I was in the dugout to actually be able to marvel at it," Thames said. "I was running and I saw him hit it, I knew it was gone, but I didn't know by how much until [we saw] the video. That was crushed."
Shaw tied Braun for second on the team with five home runs. Thames already has eight, the most in the Majors.
"I can't let him get too far ahead," Shaw said of Thames' early pace. "I thought I was going to make some ground up on him tonight, but then of course he has to go deep, too. We just try to feed off each other. You just try to keep up."
Prior to the dawn of Statcast™, home run estimates at Miller Park were based on engineering drawings from a group of students from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The longest homer in stadium history jumped off the bat off Russell Branyan, a 480-foot solo shot off the Cubs' Greg Maddux on July 27, 2004.
The Brewers sent reliever Tyler Thornburg to the Red Sox in December for Shaw, two prospects (including No. 9 ranked -- according to MLBPipeline.com -- Mauricio Dubon) and a player to be named, and so far the deal has paid off. Including four home runs in his last five games, 13 of his 16 Brewers hits have gone for extra bases.