NORTH PORT, Fla. -- Hitting home runs against his grandfather’s team isn’t anything new for Mike Yastrzemski. In fact, he has hit three regular-season homers against the Red Sox.
So hitting two more against them in a Grapefruit League game on Friday afternoon at CoolToday Park wasn’t what was most pleasing. The Braves left fielder’s primary satisfaction came from the fact that he has consistently hit the ball hard during his week of exhibition games with his new team.
“We can talk about it being Spring Training, but you're still playing against the best players in the world,” Yastrzemski said after Atlanta’s 15-8 win over Boston. “So it doesn't matter if they're trying new pitches or trying to figure stuff out. You’re still in compete mode, and it always feels good to have success no matter what the game is. If it’s Wiffle ball in the backyard, I’m still happy about having a good day.”
Yastrzemski has had a great start, homering three times in his first eight at-bats of the Grapefruit League season. Five of the six recorded balls he has put in play have had an exit velocity of 100 mph or greater, and two of his home runs have been hit to dead center field.
The 35-year-old outfielder opened Friday’s power display with a Statcast-projected 416-foot shot to right-center field against Boston’s Brayan Bello in the second inning. In the fourth, he hit a 407-foot shot to dead center field off Zack Kelly.
“The direction is good,” Yastrzemski said. “The ability to stay behind the ball is good right now. Those are some of the things that I wanted to work on this year, especially knowing that I'm most likely slated for a heavier platoon rule. I don't want to get too pull heavy and kind of lose the feel for being a pure hitter.”
Yastrzemski, the grandson of Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski, is slated to serve as the Braves’ left fielder against right-handed starters this year. He hit 15 homers and had an .808 OPS in 454 plate appearances against righties last year.
Early indications are the Braves will be happy with the two-year, $23 million deal they gave him in December.
“It's going well,” Yastrzemski said. “We’ll try to keep that feeling and hopefully just hold on to what's going well.”
As for homering against the Red Sox, the Boston-area native has distanced himself from the nostalgia he might have felt early in his career, like when homered in the first game he ever played in Fenway on Sept. 17, 2019.
“I think I've kind of just become numb to that part of the game where it's just another opponent at this point,” Yastrzemski said.