With the slugging Phillies heading into The Bronx to face the streaking Yankees, guesses on the number of home runs hit over the holiday weekend are high and higher.
According to Peter Gammons of ESPN, that’s because the new Yankee Stadium “has become one of the biggest jokes in baseball.”
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Speaking during his weekly segment on the “Mike & Mike in the Morning” radio program, Gammons predicted the teams would hit 16 home runs in their three-game series.
There have been 75 home runs hit in the first 20 regular-season games at the $1.5 billion ballpark. That’s a 300-plus pace.
The final season of the old Yankee Stadium saw 160 hit there.
“Buster Olney has been pointing out that they’re going to pass last year’s home run total in the old [Yankee] Stadium by about July 15,” Gammons said. “I’m tired of people saying it’s too early, we don’t have enough games.
“We have enough games. We know that this was not a very well-planned ballpark. Any player that’s played there will tell you that it’s become one of the biggest jokes in baseball.”
Forty-four of the 75 homers have been hit to right field, which should suit the lefty-dominated Phillies lineup.
Citizens Bank Park, the bandbox where the Phillies play their home games, yielded a high of 241 homers (in 2007) since opening in 2004.
There were 303 home runs hit in the first season at Coors Field (1995).
By comparison, there have been 31 home runs hit in 20 games at Citi Field.
The Yankees say they did studies on how the field would play prior to construction and will continue to do more.
“There were wind studies performed before. There will be wind studies performed as we go forward, and we’re just looking like you are to see whether or not it’s the weather, the wind, what happens when the old building goes down,” chief operating officer Lonn Trost said May 12.
The dimensions of the new Stadium are identical to the old one: 314 feet down the right-field line; 385 to right-center; 408 to center field; 399 to left-center; and 314 down the left-field line.
Trost said the Yankees might consider changes in 2010 to the first row behind the outfield fences. Possible fan interference already has led to a pair of umpire video reviews.
“We’re going to have to look at that, you know, this year to see whether or not that row, which is both in left field and right field, impedes play in any way,” he said. “But we can’t do anything this year.”
With AP