It’s another day and another record for the New York Yankees offense and the torpedo bats some of their players are using this year.
New York faced the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday in its fourth game of the season and wasted no time making early noise with solo home runs from Jasson Domínguez in the third inning and Anthony Volpe in the fourth inning.
That brought their home-run total to 17 on the season, which Bryan Hoch of MLB.com noted is an all-time record for the first four games of a single campaign. The previous record was set in 2006 when the Detroit Tigers hit 16.
This comes after the Bronx Bombers already tied the MLB record with 15 home runs through the first three games of a season.
They hit those 15 long balls during a three-game sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers to start the season. Nine of the 15 came during Saturday’s victory as the American League East club set a franchise record for home runs in a single game.
It certainly doesn’t hurt a team’s chances to set offensive records with Aaron Judge in the middle of the lineup, and the slugger entered Tuesday’s contest with four home runs on the season.
Of course, the Yankees’ offensive explosion is only going to bring more attention to their new-look bats this season. The torpedo bats resemble bowling pins with more of the mass distributed closer to the barrel where players are more likely to make contact.
An MLB spokesperson told The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner “the shape of the bat does not violate the rules,” although it might be in the future.
After all, a front-office source told R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports, “I think they’ll be banned. I think MLB will be compelled to establish a rule to prevent them from getting out of hand, and I think the interests of fairness will direct that rule to be something that more or less bans the torpedo design.”
At this point, it has been a perfect storm to generate more attention.
It is early in the season, so everything is magnified because of the small sample size. What’s more, the Yankees are a national brand that are always going to draw more headlines than many of the other teams around the league.
And they are setting offensive records, which is only going to lead to more scrutiny.
For now, though, New York’s offense looks unstoppable.
