You know about the most famous home runs hit at Tropicana Field. Wade Boggs’ 3,000th hit. Dan Johnson. Evan Longoria. If you’re reading this, that’s all familiar territory. But how about some of the longest home runs hit inside St. Petersburg’s domed ballpark?
Here’s a look at the longest home runs hit at Tropicana Field since Statcast began tracking batted-ball projected distances in 2015. We’ll start with the Rays’ five longest blasts, then get to the visitors’ leaderboard.
THE RAYS’ TOP 5
1. Mike Zunino
Distance: 472 feet
Date: May 11, 2021
Opposing pitcher: Yankees left-hander Jordan Montgomery
The details: Zunino hit a career-high 33 home runs during his lone All-Star season in 2021, but this one stood out. The catcher caught a 93.4 mph sinker from Montgomery out over the plate and clobbered it for a game-tying homer to a part of left-center field that few can even reach during batting practice.
“I knew I hit it well,” Zunino said afterward. “I didn’t know how far it went, so it’s pretty cool to hear.”
2. Mike Zunino
Distance: 466 feet
Date: April 28, 2021
Opposing pitcher: A’s left-hander Cole Irvin
The details: Zunino had to outdo himself with the aforementioned blast, because he did this about two weeks earlier. It was a similar pitch, this one a sinker at 89.9 mph and just a little farther outside, with a similar result. Zunino hammered a moonshot high off the batter’s eye at 112.8 mph and trotted around the bases.
3. Willy Adames
Distance: 462 feet
Date: Sept. 21, 2019
Opposing pitcher: Red Sox left-hander Josh Taylor
The details: The Rays’ broadcast team couldn’t do anything but marvel at this majestic blast by Tampa Bay’s young shortstop. Adames ripped a 95.3 mph fastball out to center with an exit velocity of 108.3 mph, sending the ball bouncing off the “D-Ring” catwalk, then off the top of the batter’s eye. “Oh, my. What a blast!” broadcaster Dewayne Staats said. Added Brian Anderson: “My. Goodness.” Indeed.
4. Ji-Man Choi
Distance: 460 feet
Date: July 21, 2018
Opposing pitcher: Marlins right-hander Kyle Barraclough
The details: Another no-doubter blasted out to straightaway center field, Choi turned on a 94.3 mph fastball and crushed it at 109.4 mph. The ball caromed off the top of the Budweiser Porch. At the time, it was the Rays’ longest home run at the Trop tracked by Statcast and the club’s longest of any kind since 2016.
5. Avisaíl García
Distance: 459 feet
Date: July 20, 2019
Opposing pitcher: White Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito
The details: Put it this way: This home run was so extraordinary that a baseball scientist wrote a lengthy explanation about how Statcast’s projected distances are checked. People were just that surprised it was only 459 feet. García clobbered a high, hanging changeup and swatted it at 111.2 mph into the Rays’ 2008 American League East championship banner.
VISITORS’ TOP 5
1. Alex Rodriguez
Distance: 471 feet
Date: April 17, 2015
Rays pitcher: Right-hander Nate Karns
The details: Years before he was calling nationally televised Sunday night games, showing up in Times Square on New Year’s Eve or attending presidential inaugurations, this qualified as quite a day for A-Rod. He had a two-homer game, his first multihomer showing since May 23, 2012, to pull within two home runs of tying Willie Mays. His first one, a solo shot, was the longest home run ever tracked by Statcast at Tropicana Field: a 471-foot blast.
2. Nelson Cruz
Distance: 469 feet
Date: Aug. 18, 2017
Rays pitcher: Right-hander Brad Boxberger
The details: “There’s one. Boxberger’s not even going to turn around,” Staats said on the Rays’ telecast. For good reason. “Boomstick” pulled a 92.3 mph fastball into the upper deck in left field, with an exit velocity of 116 mph. That absolute missile for the Mariners was the 30th home run of the season by the ageless Cruz.
3. Marcell Ozuna
Distance: 468 feet
Date: May 3, 2017
Rays pitcher: Left-hander Blake Snell
The details: The then-Marlins slugger was clearly waiting for something left up in the zone, and Snell left a 1-0 changeup too far up and over the middle of the plate. Ozuna punished the pitch, bashing it with an exit velocity of 112.2 mph off the Rays’ 2011 AL Wild Card banner hanging in left field. “That thing was long,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. Fact-check: True.
4. Teoscar Hernández
Distance: 464 feet
Date: Sept. 25, 2022
Rays pitcher: Left-hander Garrett Cleavinger
The details: Cleavinger left a 96.1 mph fastball over the middle of the plate in an 0-1 count, and Hernández knew he got every bit of it. The two-run shot easily cleared the first section of seats in left-center field, soaring off the right-handed slugger’s bat with an exit velocity of 113.2 mph.
5. Gary Sánchez
Distance: 461 feet
Date: July 4, 2019
Rays pitcher: Right-hander Emilio Pagán
The details: Pagán’s cutter was relatively low in the strike zone, but it was over the plate and just high enough for the Yankees slugger to reach down and bash it out to left field and into the Trop’s upper-deck bleachers. Sánchez, who had 23 homers at that point of the season, crushed the three-run shot with an exit velocity of 113.7 mph to turn New York’s two-run lead into a five-run margin in the 10th inning.