Anthony Rizzo has made it a habit to mash foul ball home runs every night. His tight stance against the plate invites inside pitches, which he often pulls hard into foul territory. The ball jumps off his bat fast and far, but just outside the line. In a recent Yankees game, he hit two near-homers to the same exact spot in right field — back-to-back pitches that both landed near two kids sitting by the foul pole. The first went to a kid in a Yankees jersey, who came up with it. The second, just pitches later, landed in the hands of “sweatshirt-mask kid,” who used his height to beat out the jersey kid. Both were stunned it happened twice in one at-bat.
Rizzo keeps doing this. Game after game, he launches would-be home runs inches foul. A viewer joked that all he needs to do is adjust his stance like Giancarlo Stanton once did — close it off, invert it, and turn those foul rockets into real home runs. Despite all the missed long balls, Rizzo still finds ways to produce. On a pitch way outside later in the same at-bat, he reached out and guided it to the opposite field for a single. That’s the trade-off with his approach: extreme plate coverage paired with constant near-miss power. The foul balls are no accident either. He leads a bizarre but consistent stat category — the hardest-hit foul balls in baseball.