Rafael Devers Hit MLB’s Shortest Home Run in Four Years

Red Sox slugger Rafael Devers has hit 67 home runs at home in Fenway Park, but never before has he hit one like he did on Tuesday night. 

With a runner on first and one out in the bottom of the fourth, Devers pulled a flyball down the line in right off of Rockies starter Chase Anderson. The ball curled toward the foul pole—the famous “Pesky Pole” that stands just 302 feet from home plate—and struck it. The umpiring crew wasn’t sure at first whether to call it a home run, but after a replay review, Devers allowed to circle the bases on one of the shortest home runs you’ll ever see. 

After further review... it's a Devers dinger! pic.twitter.com/nclvAcO2HE

— Red Sox (@RedSox) June 14, 2023

MLB’s Statcast system projected that if the ball didn’t hit the foul pole, it would have traveled 311 feet. That’s the shortest homer of the season so far and one of the shortest since Statcast tracking began in 2015. 

Rafael Devers vs Chase Anderson#DirtyWater

???? IT'S A UNICORN ????

Home Run (16) ????

Exit velo: 92.9 mph
Launch angle: 39 deg
Proj. distance: 311 ft

This would have been a home run at Fenway Park and nowhere else.

COL (4) @ BOS (2)
???? 4th pic.twitter.com/dZhhetX7aq

— Would it dong? (@would_it_dong) June 14, 2023

Only two other home runs this season had a projected distance of 320 feet or less: one by the Guardians’ Andrés Giménez that also hit the Pesky Pole and a wall-scraper by the White Sox’ Seby Zavala that barely reached Yankee Stadium’s short porch. 

Excluding inside-the-park home runs, Devers’s “blast” is one of only six homers in the Statcast era with a projected distance of 311 feet or less. One of those is a data error (a 2017 homer by Buster Posey with a projected distance of 311 feet that actually cleared the fence in Atlanta 325 feet from home plate) but the rest were all hit in Boston. Devers’s homer is the shortest since Stephen Vogt snuck one around the pole on Sept. 18, 2019. That ball traveled 307 feet. 

The shortest homer of the Statcast era belongs to Lorenzo Cain, who sliced a ball just barely over the wall on July 29, 2017. It landed in the front row, about two seats from the pole. Statcast tracked it at 302 feet—the shortest possible distance for an over-the-wall homer in MLB.