Last Thursday, Milwaukee Brewers star Christian Yelich hit the luckiest home run of his decorated career. He hit a flyball that should’ve been caught, but Chicago White Sox outfielder Eloy Jimenez left fielder took a terrible route on the ball, whiffed on it, and proceeded to briefly get stuck in the netting at Guaranteed Rate Field. The end result was a hilarious inside-the-park home run for Yelich.
Fast-forward to four days later, and the White Sox allowed another inside-the-park homer.
In the bottom of the seventh inning on Monday night, the Detroit Tigers’ JaCoby Jones hit a line drive to center field. Chicago’s Adam Engel tried to make a diving/lunging catch, but whiffed. The ball rolled all the way to the center field wall, which is 420 feet from home plate at Comerica Park. Jones was able to easily score standing up for a two-run inside-the-park home run in Detroit’s 5-1 win.
A home run, but keep it inside the park.#DetroitRoots pic.twitter.com/VZsEkEniNz
— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) August 11, 2020
So, that’s the second inside-the-park home run the White Sox have allowed over their last five games. And over their last six games, they have just one win. That’s definitely not an inside-the-park home runs allowed vs games won rate that you want.
While the White Sox are scuffling, the Tigers are playing shockingly good baseball. Detroit is now 9-5, good for the second-best winning percentage (.643) in the American League. They entered the season projected to win the fourth-fewest games (25) in MLB according to FanGraphs. Yes, it’s only 14 games, but 14 games is 23% of this 60-game season. Regardless of how good the Tigers actually are, they have already positioned themselves to be in the mix for one of the eight playoff slots in the AL.
Related: Angels phenom Jo Adell has Canseco-esque moment on flyball resulting in Rangers ‘home run’
