21-year old Texas Rangers rookie Nomar Mazara wasn’t supposed to stick in the majors this year. Texas called him up to The Show to take over for Shin-Soo Choo after a calf strain, and Mazara hasn’t looked back. Heading into Wednesday’s Angels-Rangers clash in Arlington, Mazara was hitting an impressive .317/.364/.483 with seven home runs.
Home run number eight came on Wednesday, and it was a majestic bomb that Statcast measured at 491 feet, the longest in baseball this season and third-longest of the Statcast era.
This comes one day after Mazara did this to the Angels, which Statcast measured at 413 feet.
So, let’s talk about Mazara for a second. His eight homers are third among all rookies in baseball and second among all AL rookies, behind Trevor Story of the Rockies (12) and Byung-ho Park of the Twins (9). His .317 average coming into action on Wednesday is tied with now-demoted Indians rookie Tyler Naquin for the best mark among AL rookies, and behind only Cardinals shortstop Aledmys Diaz in all of baseball (.336).
Mazara also came into the day with an AL rookie leading .364 OBP, just two points behind Diaz for the best mark of all rookies in baseball.
The rookie crop in the American League hasn’t really done a whole lot so far – only Mazara, Park, Tyler White of the Astros, and Joey Rickard of the Orioles have logged as many as 100 plate appearances. Mazara leads that quartet in every meaningful statistical category. It’s obviously still very early, but right now, Mazara is lapping the field.
